The Fittest
by MWoods78
Summary: At the end of the season five episode, "The Itch," House and Cuddy survive a traumatic experience, and find themselves drawn to each other even as they attempt to push the other away. Adult Fiction.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This takes place at the end of "The Itch" when House was looking into Cuddy's window. I love season five, and the antagonism and constant push and pull between them. This first chapter is necessary to set the premise. After this chapter, I'll write about the aftermath of what happened. In the show, they very often leaned on each other when one of them was hurt, so I'm using that theme again.  
**

**I don't own these characters. This is an M rated story, and will often include adult content (smut). There is also some mention of violence in this first chapter.**

* * *

He pushed and snarled and poked at figurative sore spots every time he'd seen her since they'd kissed. Of course the next thing he knew, he was standing outside of her home. He wanted her, he knew it. And not just in the lusty ways he was comfortable with admitting that he wanted her. Yet again, he found himself walking away. If he had stayed the night they'd kissed, he knew how things could have gone. There would have been sex, amazing sex. The kind of sex he'd walk away from because it meant something.

In this case, 'something' that was remarkably complicated.

So he saw her through her window, and he knew what he had suspected for a long time. This was definitely 'something.' He turned, just two emotional notches down from panicked, so he could leave before she found out he was there. She heard him though, she must have, because she was coming out through her door and stomping down her walkway.

"Are you stalking me?" she called out angrily.

"I was worried that you couldn't take being rejected, so I came to make sure you didn't decide to end it all. Then I remembered-you are probably really used to rejection."

She shook her head, looking upward with apparent frustration. "You're right, who would want me? The insult would be fantastic-except we both know that you want me. So who are you really insulting?"

"If I wanted you, I could have had you. We both know that, too."

"You're an emotional child. No, not a child, children are capable of compassion and love and empathy. Things you clearly know absolutely nothing about."

"I-I don't know about empathy? I would never have-" House started but was interrupted by a loud clanging sound coming from near Cuddy's house.

She turned, looking back at her home and sighing, complaining about raccoons or cats or something that had been digging in her garbage. Looking at him, she tossed her hands out to the side, "Fine, House, say whatever you need to say. You hate me and having any romantic interaction with me would be the most horrendous thing you've ever considered. I don't have time for this argument. You say whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better, but we both know you were the one who kissed me. And I remember how you kissed me. You can lie to yourself, you can lie to everyone else, but you can't lie to me. I was there. Those were not the actions of a man who hates a woman. Now go. Run away. You're good at that."

"I am?"

"Yes. You are. You're an expert at running and pushing away. I'm going to go pick up my damn garbage. You ride home, telling yourself the story about how much you don't want me. Maybe one day, you'll believe it."

She confidently, quickly returned to her house, walking to the space beside it, separated from the street by a tall, wooden gate. He watched her while he climbed onto his bike, his internal dialogue already rehearsing his defense. She opened the gate and it began to swing closed. It was so high that he couldn't see anything on the other side. He wanted to get the fuck out of there before she even came out to confront him. Her fingers were on the outside of the gate, and then he saw them slip too quickly from the edge, slightly pulling the gate forward with her.

It was a fact that he'd deemed irrelevant at first, but his mind kept seeing the way she let go, or more that she didn't seem to want to let go of the gate. He couldn't erase that three-second piece of imagery from his head. He had already started his bike, he didn't remember doing it because he'd been thinking about those same few problematic seconds. So he turned off his bike, grabbed his cane, and limped back toward her gate. He wasn't looking forward to the conversation, if there was one. He hoped to get close, make some sort of comment about her digging through the garbage, and hurry back home when he was sure she was fine.

When he walked through the gate, he knew everything was not fine instantly. There were two figures, wearing dark clothes and ski masks, surrounding her. One had his arms around Cuddy and she was trying to get her body in a good position to defend. The one who held her was bigger than House, probably younger, and also obviously not disabled. Another one stood in front of her, showing a small handgun that was pointed toward her chest.

House didn't go unnoticed for long. The man who was not holding Cuddy pointed the gun at House, gesturing him away from the gate. Meeting Cuddy's eyes, House complied. Cuddy's eyes were certain, determined, still more angry than frightened, but he could see the evidence of worry, even in the dark. The one with the gun demanded, "I want your wallet. Then we'll go inside and see what you two may have that we want."

House sort of sneered, "I've been shot before, with a real gun and not a little pellet gun. I'm really not feeling all that threatened."

"This is a real gun. You want me to prove it to your kneecaps?"

"I can give you my wallet, but I don't really carry anything great in it. If you walk away now, we'll forget you were here," House said.

"You have a pretty wife," the one who was holding Cuddy said. He started grinding his pelvis into her ass, exaggerating the moves to taunt House and attempt to intimidate Cuddy, "I'd love to get to know her better. I'm sure you'd like to watch that. She'd probably appreciate being screwed by a man who can get hard."

"It's actually really difficult to be screwed by a man who can't get hard, just physiologically speaking, unless you have some sort of prop."

"You're funny. You think you're funny, right?"

He looked at Cuddy again, waiting for her to order him to surrender his wallet, but she seemed to know he was buying time. Her patience faded immediately when the man holding her shoved a hand under her shirt and threatened, "You're gonna give your wallet, watch, phone and anything else you got to my friend. Or I am gonna fuck your lady while you watch. I'll bet she's a screamer. Of course maybe I want you to keep being an asshole, either way I'm gonna get something I want."

Cuddy was trying to move away while trapped in the man's arms. From her level of disgust, House guessed the mugger was probably getting turned on from the prospect of power. The man with the gun grabbed House's shirt, easily pulling him off balance and shoving him against Cuddy's wall. House reached into his riding jacket, the man clenching the gun while he watched, and House started turning over his personal belongings. Right before he handed his watch over, the man holding Cuddy growled, "Maybe I want a piece of this anyway."

House quickly looked at Cuddy, he was losing his calm, uncaring persona. He started to feel bile crawling up his throat when he considered for the first time what was probably going to happen to Cuddy if they didn't do something. He met her eyes, they were fiery, angry, refusing to cave to fear and holding onto a deep, powerful rage. She blinked at him very slowly, they had a few seconds to communicate, but he knew she was going to do something, and he was going to be ready.

She somehow managed to elbow her captor in the gut and turn, quickly kneeing his testicles as hard as she could. The perpetrator was obviously in pain, and House grabbed his cane and swung at the man with the gun, connecting with the side of the idiot's head and watching a long gash appear in its wake. The man he hit was not so forgiving though, nor was he incapacitated. He charged at House, raining punches on the older man's torso. Once House was on the ground, the man with the gun started kicking his sides and ribs until the pain shot through every cell in his body. Then everything stopped with the crack of a gun and a loud crash of glass.

Lights came on next door, and floodlights started to light up the back yards around them. When a bedroom window next to Cuddy's opened, she yelled, "Call 911."

The thieves momentarily seemed to consider doing more harm to their victims, but one whispered, "Man, we gotta go."

They both seemed a bit damaged while they hobbled away, but House already felt the bruised flesh covering his chest and the stinging throb around one of his eyes. He tried to clear his sight enough to figure out what had happened to her, hoping that she had been able to protect herself from her attacker. When he finally looked at her, she was picking herself up from a glass recycling pile, her arm and side covered in lacerations.

When he looked over, he saw blood dotting her clothing down the right side. He felt a horrible dizziness for a moment, but she lifted the side of her night shirt and was assessing her own wounds.

"Anything critical?" he asked.

"No," she answered in perfect monotone, "just some scrapes. You?"

House ignored her question. She walked over to help him up from the ground. He could tell by the spreading marks of blood that some of the cuts were more than just scrapes. "How'd you get his gun?"

"I didn't," she said, pointing at her broken window. "The gun went off, but I never had it."

Chaos erupted when police and an ambulance arrived and neighbors were coming to investigate. The police were asking so many questions, most of which Cuddy was answering while House stood silently nearby. After a few minutes, one of the cops said, "Let's go down the hospital, collect a kit, fix you two up."

"She wasn't raped," House responded forcefully, hoping that what he was saying was correct because he did feel consciousness slipping in the middle of the assault.

Everyone seemed stunned when he reacted so strongly.

"Sir," the policeman said, "he threatened to, and there may be physical evidence. He also discharged his firearm. There have been several break-ins in the area, two of them involved very violent rapes and one victim is currently in a coma. If she doesn't wake up, we'll add murder to the list of charges. I don't know if these are the same guys, but we want to catch them so we can find out. Are you going to ride with your friend to the hospital, or do you want a ride down to the station with one of our guys?"

Without responding, House walked past the cops and followed Cuddy to the police car, getting in and pulling the door shut. They didn't talk or even look at each other on the way to the hospital. Once they were in the ER, a policewoman began to collect evidence from both of them. House and Cuddy were offered separate rooms, but neither acknowledged the offers in any way. The policewoman asked Cuddy to remove her clothes to be placed in evidence bags. House left the room without being asked, but he returned a minute later.

He kept his eyes politely cast away from her, but held out a pair of pink scrubs that he had obtained for her to put on. He stripped off his own clothes behind a curtain next to her, tossing them at the woman collecting evidence, and he also returned wearing scrubs. The policewoman said comfortingly to Cuddy, "I'll have someone come in to look at your wounds."

House sat on a wheeled stool in the corner of the room, arms folded, neither had spoken to the other directly since they left her home. An intern came in and saw Cuddy, the smile on his face disappearing when he realized the identity of the patient. He approached nervously, getting the supplies he needed, and the young man seemed to almost shake. Trying to joke, he said, "I didn't expect to have to demonstrate my skills on the boss."

It took an inordinate amount of time to gather the things needed, and the intern was almost bumbling, So House stood, pushing his way between Cuddy and the young man, "Fuck, I'll do it before you try to sew her breasts together."

The younger man left the room with a shy smile, but he seemed grateful for the absolution. Most of the staff there truly were terrified of Cuddy. Of course, House wasn't extremely gentle with her at first. He moved her into place, pushing her knees to one side so he could get close enough to deal with her wounds. After looking over her for a second, he pushed the table away and sat on the bed, facing her. Normally he would have put her arm on the table, but instead, he rested her wrist on his knee and began to anesthetize, clean and close each of the gashes that were too large. In spite of his initial attempts to appear gruff and uncaring, he was unspeakably careful and remarkably gentle once he actually began to work on her. A few wounds he closed with a stitch or two, a few he used butterfly closures on until her arm was completely cared for. The first time he spoke again, he said, "Lie down."

"Why?" she snapped back.

He pointed at her side to the places where blood was already seeping through the scrubs.

"Shit," she answered, lifting the shirt to check her side. Some of the gashes there were a lot worse than the ones on her arm. House figured she was probably too numb to feel much pain yet. She was too poised to have really felt the reality of what had happened.

She pulled the shirt off, tucking it to her chest. She didn't have a bra, after all, she was ready for bed when all of this had happened. She carefully slid down on the bed, trying not to aggravate any wounds. House pushed a pillow toward her chest so she'd have something to cover herself with. He held out his hand for the bloodied scrub top and said, "Give it to me."

He tossed the bloody shirt in with the soiled linens. Cuddy had her arm draped over the pillow while she waited for him to return. Cameron came in at that point, stunned to see the two people who were in her ER. "I didn't know you were involved. I guess I should have known when my intern ran out of here."

"Get me a tetanus shot," House replied.

Cameron came closer, looking at the wounds on Cuddy's side. "What happened?"

"Our usual rave got out of hand. Tetanus shot. I need one."

She turned and left the room, House immediately grabbing another sheet from behind the bed to cover the parts of her side that he wasn't working on. After all of the comments he'd often made and the ways that he'd looked at her, in this circumstance, he was beyond respectful of her physical person. When Cameron returned with the shot, she said, "What can I do?"

House picked up the shot, nodded at her and said, "That's all." He continued to stare, waiting for her to leave.

Cameron looked at Cuddy, "Do you need anything?"

"No thanks, Cameron," Cuddy answered in monotone again.

"Call if you need me."

After Cameron left, Cuddy said, to no one in particular, "I don't have my phone." That fact seemed evidence of how disheveled she was. Cuddy was rarely unprepared.

There weren't many cuts on her side, but the largest and deepest was there, and it actually took House a bit longer to close. While he was finishing, staring at his work, he asked, "Is there anything else? I wasn't really able to pay attention to what was going on with you while he was kicking my ass. Do you need any tests run or-"

She tiled her head to the side and his true question dawned on her, "Oh, no. He didn't rape me, if that's what you mean."

House breathed a sigh of relief, but answered gruffly, "That or anything else I didn't notice."

He gave her the injection in the muscle of her arm, and when he was done, he realized that his left hand was resting on her side just above her hip. He figured it out because she was looking at it. Pulling his hand back quickly, he held out his Vicodin bottle. She took the whole thing from him, looking surprised that he turned over something he valued so much.

He grabbed a new scrub top and quickly wrote a prescription for Vicodin, saying, "It there are any leftovers, you know who to give them to."

"I'm fine," she said handing him the bottle back and pulling the top over her body, realizing how sore she was.

He started to leave and she grabbed his arm, "Your turn."

There was a look of confusion on his face, so she stepped him in front of the mirror. His one eye was deep purple already, and there were three lacerations on the side of his face, one looked like a pulled back flap of skin on his jaw.

"I'll close them up or they'll scar."

He sat on the edge of the bed while she cleaned up the mess from her injuries and she got out clean implements. "Should you call in a real doctor for that?" he asked, the bite missing from his voice.

"This is my chance to permanently disfigure you, I'm not giving that up," she answered, also without a bite in her tone.

She took the same care with him, patiently closing each of the wounds and getting an employee's attention to order another tetanus shot. Her fingers were dainty and chilly against him. Her fingers felt better on him than he wanted them to. She had worn gloves, something that he had neglected to do while he worked on her. He tried to ignore the urge he had to kiss her. It wasn't all that different from how he'd felt the last time he'd caved. She looked small and pained, and there they were, both aching from an attack that was as senseless as it was unexpected. Then there was a look in her eyes of sympathy, a connection that had been made between them. That connection itself was almost as terrifying as the thought of standing by idly while Cuddy was raped.

When he tried to get down, she saw the way he winced, he thought people in the next town probably saw it, too. She stopped him, sticking her fingers under his scrub top and looking at him for permission. He scoffed but lifted his arm to give her access anyway. She literally gasped when she saw his red side, angry and dark and already bruising. "God, House. He kicked you?" He didn't answer, and she touched his arm, "Are you alright?"

He turned, and he could tell from the look on her face that she was bracing for him to say something really cruel. She started to flinch, preparing emotionally for the onslaught, and then he asked, with a flicker of worry, "I don't know. Are you?"

She nodded immediately, like it was no big deal, then she said, less certainly than she nodded, "Maybe. I think so. Let's take you up for X-rays."

"Nothing's broken. Even if it was, they'll tell me to do what I'm going to do anyway: rest, let it heal, take lots and lots of Vicodin."

When they were finally leaving, there was a policeman waiting with House's wallet in the lobby. "They must have dropped this when they were leaving. If there are any missing forms of identification, or credit or debit cards, you should probably cancel them immediately. Ma'am, do you have somewhere else you can stay tonight? I'll send a patrol by periodically, but it might be best for you to wait until we can have someone come out and evaluate your security system. You should also have that broken window replaced."

"I'm fine," she answered stiffly, pushing past the officer to the door.

"Do you need a ride?"

House looked at the cop, "We've got it covered."

When they were outside, he was already calling for a taxi with a phone he must have stolen or borrowed from someone. She didn't even think to ask. She started walking, it was much too far to walk. "God, you're stupid. After what just happened, you're going to walk home? Not to mention the fact that it is really cold if that's all you're wearing."

"I don't have any money and my car's at home," she yelled back.

"It hurts too much for me to chase you."

She turned to him, arms folded, "I'm not asking you to chase me."

"I'm getting a cab, ride along. Are you really too fucking stubborn to ask me for a ride? Did you catch some sort of me-related disease the other night when you couldn't keep your hands off me?"

She hurried back, clearly uncomfortable with the fact that he was so casually mentioning something so personal while they were on hospital grounds. "You know what? I'm not in the mood for this fight. I'm walking,"

She made it a few steps away before he grabbed her arm. They both flinched from the pain.

"You don't even have a phone if something happens," he said quietly. "And if you walk the whole way home, those stitches on your side are going to pull."

"I don't want to spend the ride listening to you try to blame me for something you instigated. I don't need that right now."

"We don't have to talk."

She nodded, standing next to him, her arms still folded across her chest. They were both shivering by the time the taxi arrived, standing apart from each other in their scrubs since their clothing had been taken into evidence. Neither moved closer to find warmth. The cab ride was cold and silent, and when they pulled up to her house, she stared at her door. "Thanks," she said opening the car door but not immediately getting out.

He couldn't shake the imagery of the embarrassed pair of foiled muggers returning to take out their anger on Cuddy. Acting on impulse, he reached across her and pulled her door shut before he gave his address to the cab driver. "What are you doing?" she asked.

There was a hint of relief in her tone, covered by her irritated question.

"They could come back. You're an idiot if you choose to sit there, alone, and wait to see if they do."


	2. Chapter 2

After leaving Cuddy's place, they arrived at House's. He disappeared into his room and returned with a sweatshirt and some pajama pants, mumbling, "Take these."

She stared at the clothes he held out in his hand, and she snarled her lip at them, "I'm fine with this."

"You're cold."

"I'm fine," she insisted, until he pointed at her arms. Her skin was prickled and she seemed to be shivering, but she was too stunned to notice. She took the clothes as she said, "Thanks. Can I use your shower?"

"Should probably give the wounds on your side twenty-four hours."

"I won't take a bath, just a shower." House shook his head disapprovingly until she whispered while she looked at the clothes in her hand, "I can still smell him on me—in my hair, on my skin."

That fact struck him with disproportionate strength while he was reminded of just how close they came to complete disaster. The fact that another possible victim was comatose further inflamed his concerns. "The ones on your side are deep. Make it quick and try to keep the water away from that whole area."

She was in there longer than she should have been, but he wanted to put her on antibiotics anyway. Not doing so was a miss on his part, and the fact that something so obvious slipped his mind irritated him even more. For some reason, he walked up and down the hall while she was in there, finding excuses like changing into warmer clothes or getting something to read from his room. When she got out of the shower, he rushed to the sofa, not wanting her to know he had stayed by so close.

When she emerged, wearing the clothes he had given her, she seemed to notice more acutely how much her side hurt, but he assumed that shock was hiding much of the pain from her conscious thought. House poured two glasses of scotch and handed one to her before he quickly drank his own while he watched her stare at the door.

She asked to use his landline to check her voicemail while he watched an infomercial. Soon he realized she checked her voicemail three times in ten minutes. "Do you get a lot of work-related calls at three am?"

"It's a hospital."

"No shit, you work for a hospital?"

"I mean I can't control when the calls come because emergencies don't occur between nine and five."

"Can't you have your number forwarded here?"

"How long do you think I'm going to sit here in your apartment? Tomorrow I'll call and have the window fixed, meet someone to check on the security and everything will be fine."

"It's that easy?"

"Yea."

House saw she was still shaking a bit, although subtly. He poured her another drink while she dialed her voicemail again and she scowled at him, "Are you trying to give me alcohol poisoning?"

"There's a doctor who lives in this building. He takes a lot of drugs, but it's better than nothing. You'll be fine."

She started sipping the next one. When she hung up, he said, "You can take my room if you stop calling your voicemail like a jealous girlfriend."

He leaned into the corner of the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table and looked like he was trying to sleep. She got up, walking to his lounge chair and sitting down instead of going to his room. He swallowed the snarky comment that was on the tip of his tongue about her inability to leave him out of her sight.

There were a few noises like the building settling, the ticking of plumbing and heat, cars outside driving by, things that seemed to constantly put her on edge. He was a lot jumpier than he thought he would be, too. He thought about getting up and pacing when he had trouble relaxing, but decided he didn't want to wake Cuddy since she was lucky enough to sleep. Then he realized that she wasn't sleeping when he could hear her pacing over the floor boards behind him.

She walked around and sat on the sofa, "Are you awake?"

"Yea."

"They have your phone and they had your wallet."

"Nothing is missing from the wallet, but yea. They didn't have time to empty it before they took off. Why?"

"But they had it."

"Yea."

"Which means that they might know where you live, too."

"They couldn't have seen it. It was dark."

"Are you completely sure? Are you certain there isn't any identifying information on your phone? There aren't that many Houses around here, so even if there's a text with your name-"

"There are tons of houses."

She didn't find his joke funny, "They might know where you live."

A car pulled up out front. She tried to look calm while she walked to the window and peered out. The suggestion rang through his head when he realized just how correct she might be. He worriedly rubbed his stubble, but his eyes were wide.

"I don't want to stay here. If staying at my place was idiotic, staying here is idiotic, too."

"Let's try to sleep for an hour or two. When it's daylight, we'll figure out what we're going to do."

"We? Are you going to follow me around forever?"

"It's only been a few hours. Besides, that was some pretty tough shit you pulled back there. Maybe I want you to keep an eye on me. You have steel balls, Cuddy."

She didn't smile, she was already worried about the next step, picking up his home phone again. He pulled the jack from the receiver. "We'll call your assistant later and she can forward anything important to you. Just lie down and try to sleep for an hour."

She sat in the other corner of the sofa, putting her feet up on the coffee table like his were. They both nestled into their ends, as far apart as they could be while on the same piece of furniture, when they heard a noise right outside of House's door. Cuddy jumped up, her arm resting against her side before she went to investigate. "It's my neighbor. He always comes home around now," House explained, trying to sound calm although he could feel his heart thumping in his chest.

Cuddy was pacing near the door, clearly unable to relax. House finally decided it wasn't worth it, "Do you want to go to a fucking hotel?"

She nodded, "It's safer than waiting here. Somewhere decent, though."

"You don't have any money, you're not in a position to be particular."

"I'll reimburse you."

House gathered some belongings while Cuddy continued to stare at the door. She insisted on driving since she'd had less to drink, but she was so consumed by anxiety from the attack that it probably wasn't safe to let her. House handed his credit card to the person at the front desk and ordered one room without asking Cuddy. She seemed uncomfortable at each person who saw them. They were a sight, the pair of them. She was drowning in House's clothes and favoring one side, and he had a freshly stitched and bruised face and his walk seemed more painful than normal. At hotels like this one, the employees usually treated her with total respect, but that night, she was more of a spectacle.

As soon as she was in the room, she went for the phone. House took it from her hand, calling the number for her assistant and leaving a message on her voicemail that explained how to reach Cuddy in the event of an emergency. When he hung up, she was seething, "You do not get to make decisions for me. I'm not some weak princess in a tower who needs you to take care of me because I can't handle it."

"No one would dream of calling you a princess," he snarked.

"I have handled things far worse than this."

"Probably not."

"And you'd just love it if I would fall apart."

"I really wouldn't."

"You're enjoying this."

"Oh yea," he responded with derision, "this is like a dream come true."

"Screw you. You do not control me or my work. I'm still your boss, and don't forget it."

"First of all, we aren't at work, so you aren't my boss here. Second, this isn't about me trying to control you."

"It always is."

House grabbed her wrist and she pulled back, asking angrily, "What are you doing?" He held his hand out, palm up, trying to get her to willingly come to him. "You want to hold my hand?" she scoffed.

"Yes," he countered dryly, "I thought we could tell inspirational stories until we feel better." His voice softened, "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I'm not afraid of you," she answered, sounding like she had been insulted.

"You have no reason to be," he responded, holding out his hand and waiting.

As a rule, she was always more comfortable with physical contact than he was, although she was hardly the most touchy-feely person around, but it looked like the decision to touch him was a complicated one. She slapped her wrist into his hand, rolling her eyes impatiently. He folded most of her fingers down, guiding the two that were still extended to the pulse point in her neck. "Feel that," he said, roughly. "You aren't worried?"

Her face actually seemed stunned when she felt how rapid her heartbeat was, but she tried to argue back, "Of course it's elevated, I'm arguing with you."

"That's not why. It's been this high for hours. You're pacing, your pupils are dilated, you're unbelievably hyper-vigilant, and you're still shaking."

"I'm cold," she answered, uncertainly.

"I know what happened tonight. I was there."

"If only I was as strong as you."

"Tonight fucked you up. If it didn't fuck you up, there is something wrong with you."

"I can handle it."

"I know," he answered so casually that his compliance stunned her. "You'll be alright. But you aren't alright right now."

She laughed, knowingly, "This is all part of these games you've been playing. If I don't learn from the past, I'm going to repeat it. You're trying to push me away, to piss me off so I'll leave you alone. Then, when I really leave you alone, you'll show up to pretend to be there for me, and if I allow you to be there for me, you'll get mad at me for allowing it. I don't want to play this game."

"No games."

"I'm only here with you because I can't go home."

"That- - is a lie."

"It's so weird that you're completely fine about all this, like this is something that happens to you every day and it's no big deal!"

"I'm not fine," he screamed louder than her, stopping as soon as he realized how loud he'd been.

He had been making attempts to be patient and calm, at least for him, but the stress of the day and too long without sleep began to wear away on him. He felt an unexpected remorse spreading almost instantly until he realized something. Cuddy was startled by the sounds of pipes, passersby and sounds it seemed only she was hearing, but she was not at all startled by the sound of him, screaming in her face. He was one of the few things she still seemed at ease with.

She did look startled when hotel security came to find out if everyone was alright and to warn them to keep it quiet. After security talked with Cuddy to ensure that she, too, was alright, the two were alone again.

"Try to sleep," he said, finding sleeping pills in his bag and giving them to her. "I'll keep my eye on the door. Nothing's going to happen."

"Why should I trust you?"

He thought at first before he answered, "I have no idea why. But you obviously do."

It was the strangest thing to him, but she slept. Not peacefully, but she did rest, wrapped in too many blankets and waking every thirty or forty minutes, but at least it was something. When she had been asleep intermittently for almost three hours, someone tapped on the door and slammed it part way open until it hit the swing lock that they'd latched. Cuddy bolted up, immediately fully alert and completely ready to defend herself.

Housekeeping staff wrongfully assumed the room was empty, likely because they had checked in so late. House angrily went to the door, shooing away the person on the other side. When he turned back, Cuddy was yelling, "I thought you were watching the door."

"They were coming to restock towels, not do us bodily harm."

"I'm fine," she said, completely unconvincingly, still scattered and uncertain.

"Yea, you seem great," he retorted.

"Even this is a joke to you."

"It isn't a joke. You just need to relax. Soon, those two will be in custody and things will start to feel better, you'll feel back in control and your world will start to make sense again."

"This is about me being a control freak?"

House carefully lowered his body onto the bed, "We need to stop talking. Give me an hour to sleep and then we'll go take care of what needs done."

"I am not a control freak," she snapped, continuing the argument.

"I didn't say that, but clearly you are. Shut up, I'm tired. I don't feel like getting thrown out of this hotel because they think we're beating the fuck out of each other."

He felt the bed shift, and the next thing he knew, she was beside him, holding his hands down to the bed. "I'm a control freak because I'm upset that I was almost raped? That fucker was grinding his dick against my ass. Could you hear the shit he was whispering to me, feel his fucking breath and the horrible goddamn smell of his body? Do you want him to do that to you?"

"No."

"I didn't either."

"I wasn't going to stand by and let him do that to you," he said, staring into her eyes, "and neither were you. It didn't happen because you used your head and we got through. You can't expect everything to instantly feel fine."

She suddenly straddled him, her hands holding his into place on the bed. "You don't know what that was like. I could barely move. I couldn't get away."

"I know what it feels like to not have control over what people do to you. I know what it feels like to be bullied by someone much stronger. It's not the same, but I get the basics."

He was the person that she trusted, and in some way, it seemed there was a measure of confidence coming back from the fact that she was subduing him.

"You should get up," he said after a second.

"You hate being out of control, too," she argued.

"It's not that. Really, you should get up."

She looked down at their bodies and sneered, "Are you getting turned on? Talking about rape turns you on?"

"No. It doesn't." A look of disgust settled on her face so he spoke carefully, "Does this feel the same? You have me pinned under you. I'm not fighting you. How is this a good example of what happened to you?"

"I'm trying to prove a point."

"You can't prove that point to me. The thought of being subdued and ridden by you is not one of my top ten fears, you're traveling dangerously into fantasy territory here. I'm not turned on by rape but this scenario is not rape."

"You wanted me stop."

"I'm trying to be a good guy here. After what happened to you- - -"

She nodded, apparently appreciating the gesture. She moved slightly lower, still over him but in a less provocative location.

"I asked you a question," he abruptly continued, "does this feel the same?"

There was no answer.

"I wouldn't do that you. I might push and I might walk away, but I would never try to hurt you like he did," he continued. "And you know that. This—does not feel like that. And I'm not worried about you overpowering me."

"Because you think you can get away?"

"Because I know you."

"I don't even know if I want to go back to my own home."

"Sometimes home is the worst place to go."

"How do I make it stop?" she asked, leaning over him, letting go of his wrists and moving them to the bed on either side of his neck. "I feel like things will never be the way they were."

"They'll never be exactly the same," he answered, honestly. "What happened will probably always be part of your memory. But it won't be so recent and even if things aren't exactly the same, it will be better than it is right now."

His voice was low, sort of calming. She moved in closer, and he could tell she was going to kiss him. "You don't want to do what you're going to do," he warned, more gruffly.

"You're right about one thing. You don't feel like he felt. You feel- -good."

She let their lips touch for a second, she could feel the sigh, the same one she'd sensed so recently when he started to surrender to a kiss. He slid his hands over the crisp yet soft sheets, palms up, and partially stuck his fingers under her hands so he wouldn't do anything to direct her. There was a battle within him, the desire to seek a soothing touch and offer her the same thing, but he knew she wasn't fully herself. She hadn't been since the attack. Her voice was monotone, she seemed disconnected overall.

Her eyes looked at him, backing away a little. Her lips were already flushed, full and slightly parted. With certainty, he said, "I'm taking advantage of you if something happens here."

"No you're not," she answered softly before her lower lip dragged over his.

"You're just reacting to what happened, you're looking for something that you think will make you feel better, help you forget," he said, his argument sounding less ardent than his words.

"What's wrong with that?" she asked before she really started kissing him.

Her tongue parted his lips almost instantly, and in a second, any of his hesitation was fluttering away while he started to kiss back. She felt good, they were sharing in the need and comfort of each other. It felt intense, safe and distant from the harsh realities around them, like finding shelter in the midst of a terrible storm. He tried to lift his body, propping himself on his elbows, but the new position, the attempt to move, and the weight of her body on his ribs ripped him away from her and back onto the bed. He squinted at the pain in his side, his hands moving to the site of the pain involuntarily. She quickly pulled away from him, feeling her body's own ache while she tried to move too swiftly.

"I'll get you some ice," she said as she walked to the table where the ice bucket was.

"It's fine, just grab my Vicodin," he pointed at the bottle on the table near her.

She handed it to him, lifting his shirt to look at the bruising that had only darkened and become more painful looking. "I knew we should have taken you to X-ray."

"It's not broken," he snapped.

Cuddy grabbed the ice bucket again, quickly looking at the hotel map that hung on the door. He could see the way she tried to take breaths to steady herself while she picked up the keycard, and walked to the door. Her hand was on the handle, and House said with complete irritation, "Just forget it. It's fine. Don't get all worked up again."

Perhaps, in some way, what he had said was a challenge. It was both silly to imagine that she would have a problem walking the short distance to an ice machine, and, at the same time, it seemed a daunting task. She was ignoring him, gathering resolve one final time before she swung the door open and walked into the hall. He was stunned, sitting up in the bed as carefully as he could and staring at the door. It was pulled shut, and he heard her try the lock three times to make sure it was latched so he would be safe. Then he waited.

He didn't even think of following her. Knowing Cuddy, if she set out to do something, she was going to accomplish it. But he could see the apprehension she felt before walking out that door alone. About three minutes later, he heard the key card in the lock and she reentered the room. She pushed the door shut after dropping two bags of ice on the floor, again checking the lock three times and engaging the other backup locks as well.

Turning toward him, she leaned against the closed door for a moment. She looked a bit flustered. Since the attack only hours earlier, she seemed to be obsessed with guarding and locking doors as a way to ease her anxiety, so being on the outside must have felt uncomfortable, but there was a quick smile across her face when she accomplished a menial task with monumental implications.

And he couldn't help but make note of the fact that she braved her fears to get something to ease his pain. Realizing that she was still leaning against the door, she turned and checked the locks again before she picked up the ice bags and walked over the bed. "They had whole bags, I didn't even need the bucket," she commented.

She went about her task, gathering the thick towels from the bathroom, wrapping the bags of ice and returning to him. She placed the bags carefully around his sore ribs, and he nodded a show of appreciation. "Need anything else?" she asked.

"Sleep."

Cuddy seemed very much herself for those few minutes until she walked away to let House sleep. He noticed that she looked much less confident and at ease when her self-imposed task was complete, and she was left with unstructured time. His eyes started the flutter shut due to complete exhaustion, but before he fell asleep, he saw Cuddy. She was near the television, flipping channels at perfectly timed intervals with a remote while all of her attention remained on the door.


	3. Chapter 3

House woke and Cuddy seemed ready to go. "I have a meeting at four."

"No you don't," House said before his eyes were even open.

"I do. It's departmental budget allocations and your department is on the list. If you want to cut people open or draw blood next year, you want me to go."

"Reschedule it. They'll understand."

She continued to stare at him, "I need to go. And I need to stop at my place. I need my bag, and clothes before I go to this meeting."

"You're ready for that?"

"I don't have a choice."

"You do have a choice. The most compassionate courier service in existence. Wilson."

"Wilson won't know what clothes to grab. I don't think I want him rooting through my belongings."

"Well, I could send my team, but they actually will root. They'll also report to me. I, for one, would not want Kutner digging through my drawers. Wilson won't. And if there is any man alive who can pick out the clothes you want from a description alone- - it's Wilson."

She considered his suggestion for a moment while he looked down and realized that the ice bags weren't melted. When she predicted his question, she explained, "I switched bags of ice with new ones and timed it out so they weren't on too long."

"You didn't have to do that."

"I didn't want you to get frost bite. Or wake up in a wet bed," she said because the answer was obvious.

"Call Wilson. Give him a list, tell the cops when he's going so they don't accidentally arrest him. Or not, because that would be pretty amusing ."

"I need to go back there some time."

"Of course you do. But not today."

Wilson gathered all of the things that Cuddy had requested. He was obviously concerned, but Cuddy was ready to return to work and there was little point in arguing with her. House went to work also, even though he didn't have a case. He napped in Wilson's office most of the time, giving his team instructions to alert him if Cuddy left the building.

At nearly seven that night, while House was napping, Kutner came in, "We're all ready to leave. It's your shift to watch Cuddy."

"She's still here?"

"Yea. We thought she was getting ready to go, but the cops kept her in there for a while."

"The cops are here?" House asked, trying to sit up quickly.

"No. They left."

"You didn't think I'd want to know that?"

House moved as quickly as he could, which really wasn't very quickly at all. He was furious, though, when he tried Cuddy's door and found it locked, worried that she had left before he got there. Then he saw her peeking around her blinds. All of her blinds were closed, he noticed when she opened the door. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Working."

"Why's your door locked?"

He stepped in and listened while she locked it again. He sauntered around her office, snooping. She ignored his question and returned to her desk, continuing to work.

"Were the cops here?" he questioned.

"Are you having me watched?"

"These walls do talk. So does my team."

"Well, the walls and your team are misinformed. That was a security company."

House grabbed the new phone that he was given that day and called Kutner, "If you can't tell the difference between a policeman and a rent-a-cop, you're fired."

He hung up and looked at Cuddy while he walked into her bathroom. "Are you looking or something?" she asked.

"Are you staying here?"

She didn't answer, still working.

"You have a toothbrush and a hairdryer by the sink in your bathroom. Are you staying here tonight?"

"Why not? The building has security, my office locks, and no one will think I'm actually sleeping here. It's just for a few days. The security company is going to install a new system and fix the window. I'll have motion lights outside, the works."

"I thought you said you weren't sure if you wanted to go back."

She looked stunned, like what they had spoken of during an emotionally intimate moment only existed in that time and should preferably be forgotten. "I don't know."

"You don't have to prove anything. There's no reason for you to go back tonight. In fact, there are plenty of reasons not to go back. There's also no reason to stay here. If you stay here, you're going to attract a lot more attention."

She pinched her lips together and then asked, "Are you going back to your apartment?"

"I'm going to spend a few more days at the hotel. The bed there is better than mine and my boss offered to pay for it, so I should take everything I can get."

She thought about completing his thoughts as she almost added that they hadn't caught the bastards who were responsible, and that the woman who was comatose was actually being treated at PPTH, but she let his justification stand.

* * *

Cuddy went to the hotel with him that night. They bickered enough to keep it from feeling friendly, and they slept alternately on the sofa and bed, never together. There were a few days where they tried to allow the dust to settle from everything around them. She still obsessively checked locks, and threw herself into as much work as she could handle so that she had something to hold onto that was normal and welcomed.

To most people, House seemed to be doing fine. He took a new case that was extremely intense, which was a fantastic distraction from reality. Whenever there was a moment free, he was considering or carrying out a prank. His time was as full as Cuddy's, although he was good at making his time look wasted. The only thing that seemed to really irritate him was when people would ask if he was alright. He did his best to look like he was doing Cuddy a favor by staying with her without overselling it. If he made too big a deal out of it, Cuddy would leave because she wasn't one to expect people to take care of her. They were both fiercely clinging to their independence while finding an unwanted comfort in having the other around. At the end of the day, he felt better for being around her.

Her window and security system were ready to go almost a week after the attack. She had a state of the art security system, and no desire to go home. Still she felt like she should. One morning, Cuddy casually mentioned that she was going to try to go home after work. House didn't like feeling whatever it was that he was feeling about it.

He was going to find her shortly before lunch, mostly to ask for a procedure that was somewhat unnecessary because he'd already diagnosed the patient, but he thought it would piss her off, and sometimes riling her up seemed to do her some good.

On the way to find her, House got in the elevator with two very young, very nervous looking new students. They were staring at his face, trying to be subtle while they gawked at his wounds. "Did you meet Cuddy yet?" House asked without looking at them.

They both shook their heads. One answered, "We just started today,"

"Word of advice," he turned to face the students while he spoke, "when Cuddy uses the word 'deadline,' she means it in an almost literal sense."

The students' eyes were wide while House casually continued staring to the front. He was feeling that normalcy was already settling in for him, after all, he was capable of handling things. It didn't seem to change the overtly protective feelings he had for Cuddy, but he'd done a decent job of masking those feelings before, so he was certain he could do it again. They were both pretty careful to avoid the types of close physical encounters that led to dangerous moments between them.

House's general sense of ease over everything was dependent on a few things: his case, keeping an eye on Cuddy and finding entertaining ways to fill the spaces in between. Then, in one day, his case was solved, and Cuddy said she was going home. The gravity of the situation was not apparent to him, except for a lingering uncomfortable ache that seemed to hang in his head. He decided to offer to stay there with her for the first few nights.

He tried to find her to make that offer, but found it difficult because she seemed to be a moving target. Finally, her assistant sent him to the Trauma ICU.

He wasn't prepared for what he saw once he arrived. She was standing near the nurses' station, looking into the room in front of her. Her shoulders were raised protectively around her neck and her arms were tightly folded. He knew how much she hated being out in open areas, so he knew whatever drew her to the spot had to be significant.

He looked through the glass, seeing a family standing around a bed. It was apparent that the patient was already dead because the machines in the room were lifeless as well. Patients in the hospital often died, and Cuddy was used to that fact. He also knew that Cuddy wasn't seeing any patients, so he wasn't sure why she would be so concerned about this particular one.

Lightly bumping her arm, he whispered, "Hey," and watched her jump like she always seemed to when anything startled her. Her face was filled with sorrow and worry, and in that instant, he figured out the identity of the recently deceased.

"That's her," Cuddy said. "I guess now the charges will include murder."

House was furious, mostly with himself because he hadn't been aware of the fact that the woman was there. He always made it a point to know anything as pertinent as that, but in this case, he'd failed. He pushed into the room, past what seemed to be a grieving husband, looking at the bed for a second and imagining Cuddy in her place. Holding the wall through a spell of dizziness, he looked back again and realized that his mind had been playing tricks on him. The woman in the bed was about Cuddy's age, but had thin, blond hair. She looked as if she'd been beaten, and House suddenly realized how lucky he and Cuddy were to be alive.

He found that if he wasn't looking directly at the woman, he always saw Cuddy in her spot. He was trying to find the chart, but the family standing around the body was frustrated by the way he was intruding. Cuddy walked into the room, grabbing House's elbow and bringing him out to the nurses' station. She handed him the file once they were out there and she said, calmly, "Look through it if you want. There's nothing that could have been done. By the time the ambulance arrived, it was too late. There was no mystery. There was blunt force trauma to the head, extensive internal bleeding and brain death. If I thought there was some way you could have helped her, I would have asked."

House could no longer look at Cuddy, he wasn't exactly sure why. After standing there unsteadily as he processed, he disappeared down the hall.

* * *

She was supposed to go home that night, but she had hoped to ask House if he wanted to come along. She was going to lure him with something, either something good to drink or maybe a movie, something that she thought would convince him to stay with her. If he was with her, she was certain he hadn't overdosed or fallen apart. He was in full-on prankster mode, but she saw right through it. Of course she didn't mind the familiarity of having him there with her. It seemed simple enough to her, if they both had some comfort to gain from the situation, what was the harm? He was as careful as she was about avoiding physical entanglements, since their earlier incidents, so it seemed a safe enough situation.

But she hadn't seen him since the ICU, and she began to confront the fact that she was going to face going home all alone.

Her stitches were itching and the wounds seemed to have healed enough, plus she really wasn't ready to go home quite yet, so she decided it was time to take them out. She went to the clinic, grabbing a disposable kit that they used to remove sutures and returned to her office. Once in her office, she closed the door, locking it using the ritual she'd clung to since the attack, and then she heard someone moving. She pushed her back against wall, feeling the instant well of panic and preparing to react. She was always prepared to react. House came out of the bathroom, mumbling, "It's just me."

"Why do you have to fucking do that? You couldn't just wait at the door like a normal sane person? You know that I don't want anything sneaking up on me, so can't you try, just for a week or two, to be a little sensitive to that? I can't handle this kind of shit right now."

He was still standing by the bathroom, his head hung, and he wasn't looking at her. She walked to her desk, putting the scissors down on the top, and started pacing nearby. When he finally moved, he sat in her chair, gesturing her to stand in front of him. She was still trembling when he took her wrist and carefully pulled her closer. "Taking these out?" he asked, still without looking at her.

"They're healed."

He turned her arm, looking at the stitches he had put in a week earlier. He went to the bathroom, washed his hands and returned to the same spot. He lifted her arm again, carefully holding her still while he started to cut each stitch and pull the threads from her skin. After all of the ones in her arm were removed, he finally lifted his eyes to look at her. The sadness in them awoke all of the pain that she had felt since everything had happened. It was sadness in its purest form, lacking anger or fear or physical pain. He asked, simply, "Does it hurt?" while his fingers rubbed the hypersensitive skin on her once wounded arm.

She exhaled, a sharply punctuated answer, but couldn't respond further. Her heart knew that if she told him the truth, she wouldn't be able to hide much anymore. It hurt worse than anything else she'd felt in her life. Anger or fear would have been welcomed reprieves from the horrible pain she felt from the center of her chest. It felt like her ribs were confining her heart and lungs so it was difficult for simple involuntary processes to continue.

On autopilot, she reached out and held his face with one hand, looking at the wounds left behind. He'd removed his own stitches already, but the soft, taut pink scar tissue left at the spots where his skin had been separated were left behind.

He reached for the bottom of her shirt, his fingers looking too big for the tiny buttons. He unbuttoned the bottom one, his eyes never leaving hers, and he explained, "I'll check your side, too."

Part of her, the rule abiding part with a very defined sense of the appropriate, thought that she should stop him, but she also thought a denial even as simple as that one would truly hurt him. When her shirt was unbuttoned, he put the back of his bent index finger against her stomach and dragged it across the skin to the wounds. His left hand opened flat against her stomach, covering it because her body wasn't even all that large. Then he carefully pulled the stitches out from those wounds, too.

He pushed the tiny black threads off of her desk and into the garbage and asked again, "Does it hurt?"

They were both on the verge of a break, struggling to find air as they drowned, but in an unguarded second, she nodded, "It hurts."

She felt dizzy with shock when he answered, with honesty, "Me too."

The following seconds felt like hours, but they both stood there, sharing the pain of something neither had truly begun to confront, opting instead to bury or ignore the intensity.

"Are you going home tonight?" he asked, the imagines of his prediction of her body as lifeless as the woman he'd seen earlier populated his brain. Since he'd seen the deceased victim, he could think of little else.

"I was going to."

He sat forward in the chair, and reached up to softly kiss her mouth. Without breaking contact, the soft kiss became full and passionate, like he was trying to convince her of something and at the same time, trying to keep her for himself for as long as he could. He felt her step closer, her body coming more in contact with his, his arms wrapping around her waist and, for a few seconds, it seemed like that would be their eternity.

She put her hands on his shoulders, pulling back. Her eyes were wide and she shook her head, "I can't do this. We can't do this. Because if you walk away- -"

It seemed likely that he would do just that. She was convinced he was about to stand and leave, and she thought that she was about to experience all of the pain of the last month in one echoingly empty moment. He did stand but leaned his face closer, "What if I don't?"

She thought about telling him that she needed him, but wasn't prepared to admit that much, and she worried that a thought so weighty would push him away.

"I can't go," he answered simply, "I need this."

For him, the admission was simpler than he'd expected, like saying that he needed water, sleep or Vicodin. It was just a basic human need. Kissing her softly a few more times, trying to get permission to prove to her that he had no intention of leaving, he told her, "Don't go home."

Her eyes were half lidded, it felt so good to be somewhere warm and comforting, being kissed in a way that she seldom had been in her life. She knew they'd been linked, drawn together by an event that would likely change them in ways they didn't even realize yet.

But she still didn't answer, and he felt a panic grow. He quickly buttoned her shirt and took her hand instead, leading her to the door. He felt something in his chest creak when she said, "Wait," but she turned and grabbed her purse.

They both walked out into the atrium. There were few people milling around there, it seemed no one saw them as they walked out the front door. He got in the driver's seat, going to his destination without asking her. Most nights, if they drove together, he would ask if she needed to stop anywhere, or often he would check to see if she was ready to stop by her place, but he didn't say anything. He drove them to the hotel that had become their temporary shelter.

Once they were inside, she was locking the door, and brought a chair over to brace under the handle. He started doing that a few days earlier, and it seemed to help her rest for slightly longer periods of time. "What happened?" she asked, suspecting a cause but not completely certain it was what she had expected.

He couldn't answer, he couldn't say anything. The thought of speaking about emotions that he'd only recently realized were inside him was not one he could entertain. He took her hand again, bringing her to the bed and pulling her on top of him. Trying to be careful because his bruised ribs were still tender, he didn't want her to feel forced or trapped into anything. He pulled her hands over his, letting her feel that she was in the dominant position, but she immediately let go of them. Her hands were on his face or chest, touching him as an equal and not someone she was either controlled or being controlled by.

She could feel him shift occasionally in pain, and she asked, "Your side?"

"I'm fine," he answered quickly, bringing their mouths together again because he didn't want anything to stop him from being with her.

She pulled away and he started to sit up, "Don't. I'm fine."

Not going far, she started undressing him and he undressed her, her eyes settling worriedly on his bruised side until he lifted her chin, "I'm fine," he answered immediately.

They continued undressing each other, but neither bothered to admire the body of the person they'd unclothed. Their bodies had seemed more the sources of pain than anything lately and sex was not on either of their lists of top priorities in the previous week. But it was not about sex.

He tried to pull her back on him, but she hesitated when it seemed to hurt. "We can just fool around," she whispered into his ear.

Shaking his head, he initially vehemently denied the suggestion until he realized that maybe she was the one who didn't feel emotionally ready for sex. "Is that better for you?"

She rolled partially on her side, so his weight was on the uninjured half of his body and she leaned back. He was partially on top her, and surprised that she would allow herself to be stuck in that spot. Wrapping her other leg around him, she replied, "I trust you."

It was strange that a confession so typically un-erotic could seem, in that context, so erotically charged. She moved her body under him, taking his hand and moving it to her pussy. She moaned softly at the delicate touch of a gruff man. She was wet already, their relatively tame foreplay obviously enough to awaken her response. She took the weight of his cock in her hand, giving a few slow pumps to ensure his body was as ready as hers.

They were moving closer, and she could see the hesitation in the way he was trying to read every thought between the lines of the emotions written on her face. It was shocking to her that any man, seconds away from getting laid, would be at all concerned with anything except the potential sex before him. "I need this," she said, rubbing along his hip with her fingers.

"Me too."

They closed the small gap between them, each moving closer. She lined up their bodies, directing his cock with her hand, leading him into her as they sighed their relief in unison. It was a place for both of them that was comforting and warm, as their sexes met, and their arms and legs held each other closer. There was no possible way for greater intimacy between them, since they had seen so much of each other over the previous week and they'd both admitted a certain need. For them, even small admissions like those were huge confessions.

They'd fantasized about each other thousands of times. In nearly all of their fantasies, there were torn off clothes, carefully orchestrated foreplay or frantic fucking that came at a time when they forgot to guard themselves. They each remembered their youthful encounter, the way House carried her down the hall, her legs wrapped around him, after fucking her in his kitchen because they didn't make it back to his bedroom. Of course they fucked again later there, too. During that encounter, they were almost feral in their desire, both instantly attracted, and they were pulled together by a force that was as powerful as gravity. They each remembered bite marks and subtle bruises that remained as proof that they screwed each other for one intense night.

It wasn't that they no longer wanted each other like that, but their tired bodies weren't up to such exertion. And it wasn't about fucking, it was about being together. They couldn't wait, and there was no desire to try. By moving together, they were able to get a fuller range of motion, their rhythm precise and sensual. At that pace, they could enjoy every feeling. She could feel the ridge along the tip of his cock rubbing along her insides, feel the welcome approach of him into her body and, God did he fill her. Her silken heat was drawing him in, feeling his eyes rolling up sometimes when he filled her completely while her lips brushed his face and mouth.

Remembering the beauty of her body, he felt her breast, letting his thumb roll over the nipple, his palm filled with the fullness of her flesh. He wished he could move better, he wanted to bring her as much pleasure as he could, but the movement of his body was starting to really be felt along his side. Reaching between them, his finger moved against her folds, finding her clit. She loudly moaned his name when he touched the sensitive nub, feeling her hips move with a more complete and jerkier motion as she started to become more lost in their sex.

Her mouth hung open a bit while she gasped, his tongue sliding along her upper lip before he kissed the fleshiest part. He could feel her breath and literally feel her moans all through his body. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. "Does this feel good?" he asked, watching her partially nod an answer while she started fucking him more quickly. She moved enough for the both of them, but he kept moving with her for the joy of it, so he could feel her even more, so he could enter her completely and feel his tip push against her cervix.

He could feel her inner muscles start to contract, massaging his entire length as he moved in and out of her. Her clit moved against his finger while he sped up his touch, her entire sex quivered and shook around him and against him. That sensation became his whole world before his one arm pulled her closer and he came powerfully and deeply inside her.

"Don't go yet," she said immediately, while he was still brain-numbed from his orgasm.

Even if he wanted to, he certainly couldn't walk yet.

Her legs were around him still, one under his side, and their arms were entwined around their partner. The flood of hormones from sex helped their aches, but as time passed, he became very aware of his overexertion. "Not leaving," he said as he pulled away to lie flat so he could take the pressure off his ribs.

His arm stayed open and he gestured for her to come over to him. She did, her hand resting on his chest while her body molded to his side. "You OK?" he asked after she didn't say anything.

"Yea," she answered immediately, "that felt great. You made me feel good."

"You're alright with this?"

"Yea. I'm just- -I'm waiting for you to decide this is too much and leave. You're the only person who makes me feel."

He thought that she'd neglected to finish her statement, so he asked, "Feel what?"

"Anything except the hurt. Everything else is an attempt to forget that I'm anxious and everything hurts. I'm clinging to these rituals and throwing myself into work, but for a few minutes at the end of each day when we come back here, there's you and me and something real. And I don't know what I'm going to do when that's gone."

"Maybe it won't be gone," he answered, hoping that keeping her closer would halt the worried images he'd had in his mind since he'd seen the dead woman in the hospital.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: I know this update is overdue. I was sick the last few days.**

* * *

"What are you doing at two?" he asked through the door while she was showering nearly two weeks after they had started having sex.

Her silence lasted a breath or two too long, "I have a meeting."

"I find that difficult to believe. See, you put information about all of your meetings in your calendar. Usually stuff like meeting location, contact names, little notes of things to remember. And yet, today at two, there is just an hour long block of time. You know I check your schedule, I'm sure you know that, so I have this feeling that you're hiding something."

The shower turned off and she came out of the bathroom. She walked past him, the thick white robe tied around her. Going to the door, she checked the lock and the single chair they used as a barricade before she could continue getting ready. Even if the door was out of her sight for a few minutes, she would have to check the locks. He no longer commented about things like that. After she returned to the bathroom, he watched her brush her hair and rub the steam off the mirror.

"I'm not experiencing any short-term memory loss. You still didn't answer my question. What are you doing at two?"

"A friend is coming to meet me."

"A male friend?"

She stopped brushing, "You're the only person I'm seeing, so it's nothing to worry about."

"I'm not worried. Do whatever you want."

"I'm seeing a therapist, it's not social. She's someone who was recommended to me."

His lack of answer was an answer while he continued to watch from the bathroom door.

"Why do you look so mortified?" she asked.

"I just don't know why you're doing that."

"You can't be serious. Maybe because I'm still having nightmares. I'm still checking locks. I'm still not ready to go home. You think I don't know how fucked up I am?"

"So it's taking time. You're doing fine."

"I am not doing fine."

* * *

She noticed that House wasn't around during much of the day. He seemed to be hurt, worried or irritated, she wasn't sure exactly what he was feeling, but her appointment definitely affected him.

Her session came and went. The therapist was frustratingly calm, something that Cuddy thought she should have found soothing, but instead found infuriating. After the session, she found House in a clinic exam room, playing his handheld. "Cured yet?" he asked without looking at her.

"Do you want me to be like this forever?"

"I'd like to keep some parts of you the way they are now."

"The sleeplessness, the anxiety or the paranoia?"

"Forget it."

"Just tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm not thinking anything. I'm waiting for test results. I swabbed the requisite number of crotches for the day. So I don't think you have a reason to nag. What do you need?"

"I need you."

"For what?" he asked, groaning at something that was happening in his game.

"Detective Porter called. She wants me to meet her at my place. There was another attack. They aren't sure if they're related or not, but they're looking for new leads."

"They need me there?"

"They didn't ask for you. I need you."

He finally stopped and looked up, "Can't you take your shrink?"

"You can't possibly be threatened by that."

"No. I'm just not sure what you want from me."

"Why do I need to choose between you and seeking help? The therapist thinks I may have PTSD."

"Wow," he sarcastically drawled, "she must be a leader in her field. Of course you have PTSD."

"And you don't want me to seek help for that?"

"We can deal with it."

"This isn't a threat to what we have."

"What exactly is it that we have? Do you really think Dr. Obvious is going to recommend that you continue fucking your worst employee as a way to deal with this?"

"Is that what this is? Is this 'fucking'?"

He patiently waited for the question to evaporate, but eventually he shook his head.

Her nervousness was eased by his gesture. She continued, "You know what, just forget it. I'll go myself."

"What time?" he asked, standing before she could leave.

"I said forget it."

He pushed the door shut again, his arm over her shoulder, "I'll go. Don't act stupid."

"I'm stupid?" she snapped back. "Why is that? Is that because I'm looking for help or because I'm doing what I can to catch these guys?"

Leaning in, his hand connected with her hip and his mouth sought out hers. She didn't stop him or try to avoid the touch. If anything, she moved into it, letting her body conform to the line of his.

They'd refused to name what was happening between them, but the comfort that they found in each other's arms was powerful. Tenderness was allowed to exist in that moment. During sex, they could find ways to momentarily forget everything that was wrong around them. And they were having a lot of sex. Cuddy usually instigated it, she was often the aggressor and the more dominant during the session. Part of it seemed to be what she needed. House didn't mind. He liked the translation of portions of their work dynamic into the bedroom. Sometimes she was dominant, sometimes they were equals, but since the attack, he was never dominant when they had sex.

While he enjoyed the dynamic, in truth, he knew he didn't want to hurt her any more than she had been. He wanted her to regain a sense of control over her body, over her sexuality. He wanted her to know that what they were doing was exactly what she wanted. He knew that if she wanted to stop, it would tear through him like piles of shrapnel hurdling toward him at impossibly high speeds. His mind, his body, his very self, needed those moments of shelter as much or more than she did.

His mind was lost in thoughts of need and desire when she interrupted, "This, the therapist, doesn't mean I need you less."

"When you feel better, this whole thing will seem like a huge lapse in sanity."

"No it won't. You were right, things will never be the way they were before all of this happened. When you're skulking around, pissed at me, I don't like how it makes me feel. I never know if one of these times is going to be the time when you've had enough."

"It won't be."

"I'm not trying to replace you, House."

"I wasn't worried about that," he said, his eyes betraying him.

She pushed her lips against his neck, hiding an affectionate look, "Come with me."

* * *

She wasn't sure where he stood on things, conversations about emotions were always stunted and weird, and they still hadn't bothered to try to define what was going on between them. She knew she needed it. She needed him. Her mind suspected that he needed it just as much as she did, and his unhappy reaction to the thought of her seeing a therapist seemed to validate her theories.

Their fucked up, almost solely physically expressed relationship, was holding them together.

She drove to her home in the early evening. The detective had asked her, but Cuddy took charge and willingly went to the location as House sat in the passenger's seat. They never stopped there, usually they didn't even drive by. She took breaths to try to clear her mind, attempting to steady her fluttering nerves because she was not going to let her own home defeat her.

They parked in the street, looking at the building she had once considered a place of refuge that was now a house of horrors, complete with psychological funhouse mirrors and trap doors. She turned to House, expecting to see him waiting impatiently, but he was pale and worried himself. Her fingers met his forearm, and she stated, calmly, "You don't have to do this. You can wait here."

Looking at her fingers before looking back at her place, he said, "Let's go."

They moved slowly up her walkway, side-by-side but not touching. The detective was on Cuddy's doorstep, along with one of the police officers they recognized from the night of the attack. There were words of introduction and reintroduction before they went to the side of the home where the attack had occurred.

The detective asked Cuddy why she had been out that night, and Cuddy started to remember that she had seen House. She remembered their fight, she remembered the friction that seemed to stem from the night they'd kissed in her foyer after she suffered a very painful loss. She had suffered many losses in that home. She had been alone after her miscarriage, she had been alone when she heard her father had died, but after Joy was practically ripped from her arms, House showed up.

He was there the night of the attack, too. He was the reason she had gone outside. He also fought with her when they escaped their captors. Her mind started to wander to how the attackers would have gained entrance, and then she started to wonder what would have happened to her that night in her home with the two strangers had she not chased House into the street.

The detective was still asking questions, Cuddy was answering automatically, and occasionally House offered a piece of information or an observation. Before they walked through the gate, he put his arm against Cuddy's back. He didn't push her through, but he let her feel he was there. After a moment, they walked through the gate.

She continued to answer questions, right there in the place where her orderly world began to fall apart. While she explained, she realized that she was leaning back against House's side. It felt strangely good to have him at her back, literally and figuratively. It was so different from the night when the man at her back threatened to take so much away from her. As they finished, she realized how much she needed the man she had grown to not only trust, but she had developed much deeper feelings for.

Since there had been reports of an attack again, he expected that she would be more nervous and uncertain, but instead, she seemed almost invigorated on the ride back to the hotel. He wasn't sure if it was adrenaline, or the satisfaction of facing something that she had been so afraid of for so long. Walking into the hotel, she was talking, almost nonstop, about what had happened, about catching the men who did it, and in that, there were glimmers of her full self.

She was standing next to the door of their room, her fingers reaching for the locks while House lumbered to the chair that he would hand over to her to use the physically block the door. He heard the locks click in their now very familiar pattern, but the expected pattern came to a sudden halt. When he turned, he saw that she was sitting on the floor with her back against the door.

He casually held a hand out to help her up, which she eventually took. He pulled her up, observing the look in her eyes that was both empowered and stunned. The effect of facing that one fear was visible in her eyes. It was a knowing look, almost wise, the look of a person who had found knowledge through a series of experiences. "Do you still want to stay?" she asked.

"You already know the answer."

Cuddy started walking to the center of the room, apparently forgetting that she had not completed her locking ritual. House stepped up behind her, tossing his cane near the bed. His arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her against him. Her body tensed in automatic reaction, but only a second later, she relaxed again as he whispered, "I won't hurt you."

"I know that."

He covered her eyes with his other hand, his mouth moving to all of the sensitive spots along her neck, face and shoulders that he had catalogued. Her body seemed to fluctuate between guarded moments and relaxed ones, and he finally said, "All you have to do is say 'stop' and I will."

"What are you going to do?"

"What I want to do. But if you want me to stop, I will."

His one hand still covered her eyes, the other hand slipping under her top to the massage her lace covered breasts. The touch was demanding, but not rough while he pushed his fingers under her bra.

"Stop," she said clearly. He did, loosening his grip until she added, "I don't want you to ruin another bra."

He knew she was testing him, dipping her toe in the water to make sure she knew the temperature. "Fine," he answered, "so do you want me to keep going or actually stop?"

"Fuck me on the table. Hard."

"No."

"What do you mean no?" she asked, trying to spin but unable when his arms tightened around her.

"This isn't about what you want. It's about what I want. If you say stop, I'll stop, otherwise we're going to do what I want."

She nodded, releasing back against him and feeling his hands along her thighs. He stepped away, sealing the hints of brightness around the windows and turning out the lights before he returned to her.

"Should I stop?" he asked one more time.

"No," she answered, immediately feeling him tug at the peaked point of one nipple.

She relaxed her back against his chest and he allowed his hands to roam her body. There was little demonstration of obvious urgency, even though he felt it. He wanted her to enjoy the moments in almost entire darkness as she surrendered all of her reservations to him. Nothing he did would have prevented her from leaving, had she wanted to, but he was clearly the one directing. When she would become tenser, he'd say something, telling her how beautiful she was, even in the dark, or how incredibly sexy she was, or detailing just how much he wanted her.

His voice was both reassuring and arousing, so she would know that the man she was trusting her body with was the same man she had come to trust. Her body was responding, although much more slowly than normal because she was a little on edge. And suddenly, she seemed empowered, like her hesitation was a thing of the past.

Her hand moved between them, pressing against the sizable bulge in his jeans. "I thought this was about what you wanted?"

"It is," he replied, reaching out with a hand until he could feel the bed. He lifted her when they were next to it and placed her down on the thickly cushioned top.

Her body sunk in, and she momentarily reached out toward him when she couldn't find him. After a moment, she saw movement in the dim blue glow of the clock, hearing his voice through the dark so she would know it was him. He lay next to her, she could feel that he had removed his clothing before he started to remove the rest of hers. After separating from her, he moved between her legs, lying on his stomach between them. His hands moved up her thighs, the heel of his hand pressing against her pubic bone while he listened to her sigh.

He wanted her surrender to a moment in the dark. Part of him wanted the demonstration of her trust, but mostly he wanted to show her how much he could be trusted. He wanted her to know that these types of sensations could be found when she wasn't in control, at least when she was in his hands.

His tongue parted her folds, gently opening her to him. His mouth sought out what he couldn't see, feeling even more turned on when he felt how wet she was becoming at his touch. Concentrating first on her clit, he experimented with varying levels of intensity, building her from softer contact to increasingly intense touches. She answered with moans of approval, her body moving under his as it felt like the reservations she'd had were long since forgotten.

Her hands moved down her tummy to her thighs, it was the type of thing she did that normally drove him crazy, but he took her hands in his and pushed them down on the mattress. She tensed for only a second while her mind assessed the situation and decided, again, that she was perfectly safe. He pushed her hands under the small of her back, counting on her to leave them there, because he wanted both of his hands free to touch her.

While his mouth lavished attention on her pussy, his hands pressed her thighs completely open before he moved to her sex. Two long fingers pushed into her quivering core, slowly testing the access she was giving him. He twisted them in her, allowing his knuckles to press against her g-spot while he massaged her depths.

His impatience was calling him as the urge to hear her cry out became more demanding. Her moans intensified while he could feel the rhythmic tightening of her muscles around his fingers. He kept lapping up her juices, tasting the increased wetness that accompanied her high level of arousal as she screamed out. She came so loudly, her voice clear, completely uninhibited as her orgasm possessed her body and took over.

She sat up, trapping his bent fingers inside her and making it impossible for him to continue licking her. He kept pressing his fingers against the walls of her tight center until her muscles no longer responded. She collapsed back on the bed, her energy momentarily spent.

Kissing and licking from her hips to her breasts, he felt her fingers move to the back of his head, holding him against her. He ached for release, needing her touch more than he was ready to accept. His hips were between her still opened thighs. They could feel the promising heat of each other so close. His dick rested in her folds as he started to subtly pump his hips so she could feel him stimulating her clit again.

He pulled her legs around his waist, high above his hips, angling her toward him. Moving closer, the blunt tip of his cock moved along the crease of her folds until he found the opening of her body. He pushed into her, needing only a moment of guidance from his hand because he was completely hard and she was dripping wet, so their bodies were made to be together in that way. His first thrust was patient. Her body was always tight and he was larger than average, so he was always careful not hurt her. On top of that, they had been having so much sex that he suspected she must have been sore, although she gave no indication of that. His biggest concern though was ensuring that he was never unwelcomed.

She was gasping softly, moaning sounds and words of approval that let him know that she was fully willing. He hit the end of her and held there, kissing her as tongues, lips and breath met. She lifted her hips up to him to encourage movement. His groan practically yelled, "Thank God," although there were no actual words spoken. He slipped out of her body completely so he could feel his tip enter her body and move fully into her again. After two more pumps of his hips as he tested her, he pulled back to establish the faster pace that he desperately needed to end the ache that he felt.

His pleasure rang for a few seconds throughout his whole body like the reverberations of a bell that had been well-struck until she said, firmly, "Wait."

He wasn't sure if she understood the resolve that stopping required. Or perhaps she did. He stopped moving, trying to silence the groan of displeasure. Stopping at that point required gigantic resolve. After a second, he started to pull away but she tightened her whole body around him. "Wait doesn't mean stop," she explained, but he thought perhaps she was testing him again.

Her whole body tightened around him but she moved her hands under his. He had never felt so chosen in his life. After all that she had been through, she knew she wouldn't hurt her. He wrapped his fingers around her wrists, his mouth seeking hers. The emotional need was as powerful as the sexual one. The tie between them had somehow depended.

When she broke from the kiss, she moaned, "Don't stop."

"You sure?" he asked, hoping he knew the answer because he was physically in need, but also because they seemed incapable of expressing their emotional connection in ways that didn't involve sex. So much was pent up inside him, and he needed her more than he could deal with.

"God yes. Completely sure."

He thrust into her, capturing the pleasure she offered him. The sex they had been having was usually in the context of their sadness. All of the trust that had been built seemed to culminate in a moment where they truly let go, and, after confronting the place of the attack, there was almost a sense of victory in the air. Their bodies were mostly healed, so they had greater range of motion, there seemed to be no barriers between them.

Taking cues from each other, they could each sense the approaching climax. No one said a thing. They were wild in their fervor for each other, feeling the arousal of their bodies moving higher and higher until they both crossed the edge. They exploded into orgasmic bliss, knowing that their partner was reaching full satisfaction just as they were. Letting go fully was freeing.

His mind completely left the realms of conscious reality and he disappeared into the total surrender of the moment. He started to feel other things again as the fog cleared, mostly her fingers along his face and neck as she whispered her satisfaction. "I still need you," she confessed into his ear.

He rolled, pulling her along. His eyes were growing heavy and he wanted to let the words on the tip of his tongue disappear into sleep, but they emerged anyway, "You'll always have me. Even when you don't want to anymore."

She woke about an hour later. Her eyes went to the door as she realized that the chair she usually used to prop against it was still sitting next to the door and, although the main lock had been engaged, one of the other locks was still unlatched. It was the first time such a thing had happened since the attack. She got out of bed, going to the door and engaging the lock that was unlatched. Her hand moved to begin the ritual, the same ritual in the same way that she would always use to check the locks. Then she paused, balling her hand into a fist. She looked at each lock, checking them visually instead of compulsively testing them. It took enormous courage, but she allowed the visual inspection to suffice before she braced the handle with the chair.

She went back to bed, sliding next to House under the covers, finally feeling certain that the attack was not going to define her future.


	5. Chapter 5

The clinic was teeming with patients. It had been over six weeks since the attack outside of Cuddy's home, and in spite of the many improvements that had been made, she still hated being in places where she felt vulnerable. She had successfully avoided seeing clinic patients during that time. It wasn't out of line, she was the dean, and there was no reason for her to be working in the clinic. Oddly enough, or perhaps not oddly at all, it was House who proposed that she avoid the clinic in the first place.

Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve, the Clinic was full of waiting patients. She was trying to avoid calling people back to work, particularly those who celebrated Christmas and had families. She convinced House to come down to assist, largely because she knew he wouldn't leave without her anyway. A team of three doctors and two nurses tried to deal with the large crowd.

Cuddy certainly didn't mind that House did his part to diagnose people before they even made it to an exam room. He cleared out several people quickly, moving all of the patients who actually needed prescriptions or intervention into one part of the waiting area. As he continued across the line, he heard Cuddy call, "Anthony Chapman," before she took one tall young man back to an exam room.

House approached the man who had been sitting next to the patient Cuddy had taken previously. "And what do you think is wrong with you today?" House questioned disinterestedly.

The younger man snickered and looked up at House with a smug expression, "Me? There is nothing wrong with me." The young man looked at House's cane, an obvious look of superiority on his face, before he turned his attention back to House.

"You do know you're in a hospital clinic, right? Usually when people come here, it's because they're sick."

"I brung my brother."

"You 'brung' him?"

"Yea, he's back there with your wife."

There was something in the intonation that the young man used that transported House back a few weeks to the attack in the dark. House stared ahead as he thought. He was certain the attackers couldn't be stupid enough to walk right into the hospital where he and Cuddy worked, but the facts seemed to add up. House hadn't even spoken to Cuddy for at least an hour, so there was no way the young man would have seen them together in the clinic and made assumptions about a personal relationship. And he clearly remembered the attacker referring to Cuddy as House's wife.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" the cocky young man asked.

House's eyes lifted and he saw the final piece of evidence that he needed. There was a relatively fresh scar sticking out from the young man's hairline right at the place that House had split the one attacker's face when he hit him with the cane.

House's head swam as he realized who Cuddy was probably alone with in the exam room. He dismissed the hundreds of comments he wanted to make and the urge to confront the attacker because he knew it was going to put Cuddy in more danger. "I'm sure they'll be done in a minute," House said, "you can just wait here."

"That's what I was already doing."

House moved to the next patient and said immediately, "You need a prescription for that."

"You can tell by looking at me?" the confused young woman asked.

"We need to get you back to an exam room right away." He was impatiently gesturing the woman as he said, "Do you want to infect everyone in this room?"

She hurried back, whispering while she walked, "I didn't realize urinary tract infections were contagious."

House opened the door to Exam Room 4, where Wilson was working. There was already a patient in the room who was surprised at the interruption. House took out his phone and selected Detective Porter's number. Handing his phone to Wilson, he said, "Tell Detective Porter I had you call. They're here. They don't know that I know it's them. One is in the waiting room, one is in Exam Two with Cuddy."

Wilson asked, worriedly, "They- -as in the guys who-"

"Yes. It's them. Call Porter now. Keep these two in here."

"Where are you going?" Wilson asked, distracted when someone picked up on the other end of the phone.

"I'm going to get Cuddy," House said before he walked out.

* * *

Cuddy led the young man back to the exam room after she had called him. Looking over the file, she said, "You fell and injured your left arm a few hours ago?"

"Yea. It's oozing and nasty."

"I can take a look," she said while she opened the door and waited for him to enter. "We may have to transfer you over to the ER, depending on the severity of your injury."

She was getting ready to lock the door, since she always locked doors behind her. She wasn't as compulsive about re-checking the locks, but she still felt better with a locked door at her back and still needed to feel secure in any room she was in. Right before she engaged the lock, Cuddy felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle when he said, in an extraordinarily leering way, "I'd rather stay here with you."

"It's not a popularity contest," she replied with an attempt to shrug off his words and redirect the conversation, walking through the door and purposefully not engaging a lock for the first time in six weeks. "They have different supplies and different medications over there. They're better equipped to handle certain types of injuries. The clinic is more like a regular doctor's office."

"You should be modeling bras or something. Why are you a doctor?"

"I don't need those types of comments," she said with firm poise. "Would you like me to look at your arm or not?" She sounded calm, even as she felt the jittery nervousness that was filling her body as her instincts told her to run.

"Don't get your panties twisted," he complained while he pulled his arm from his shirt. "Women don't know how to take compliments."

Cuddy's eyes went instantly wide when she saw his arm, "That happened today?"

She glanced at the wound from several feet away, and could already see that infection had long since set in.

"Yea. We came here right after. I fell on a rock or something."

"It's infected," Cuddy noted, realizing that the large cut was probably several days old and looked too long and uniform to be an injury from falling. "I'll check your temperature and blood pressure, and then we might need to start IV antibiotics. We'll probably transfer you over to the ER. This is serious."

She came closer, grabbing the pole that carried the device used to measure vital signs and sliding it over to him. She had been trying to remain at ease. Her instincts had been raised since she first encountered the man. Calmly telling herself there was nothing to fear, she wanted to face this like she had faced the place where she was attacked. She had put so much effort into learning to control her compulsions and attacks of anxiety, and she tried to harness what she'd learned. She thought her concerns were the lingering effects of the attack. Cuddy didn't want to be defeated by anything or anyone. She also didn't want this young man to pay for what others before him had done.

She kept telling herself that, repeating the breathing exercises she'd learned from her therapist and summoning all of her strength to avoid panic. It was working until she got closer to the patient. She was still inspecting the wound, but when she was next to him, she realized that her fears were not merely reactions to an old memory. It wasn't the way he looked or sounded that triggered the memory, it was his smell. She could remember it perfectly. She remembered trying to remove that odor from her hair and from the skin on her arm, neck and the side of her face.

Her stomach began to churn while she tried to decide what to do without alerting him to the fact that she knew who he was. After all, she didn't just want to get away from him, she wanted to catch this fucker. She stuck the thermometer in his mouth before she wrapped the cuff around his uninjured arm. "I'm going to go get the medication you need when I'm done here," she said without looking at him, her eyes focusing on the machinery as she waited for the results.

She heard the beep she expected, indicating that he had a fever, and she was just getting ready to leave when he said, "I'd rather stay here than go to the ER. I feel like I'm in good hands."

The fact that he mentioned that he felt, in some way, safe with her, made her blood boil. After all, he was the one who had taken her sense of safety away. She'd struggled to find a balance since, and as hard as she fought, she knew she still wasn't the person she used to be. Her eyes suddenly went to his, she looked right at him, looked right into his pupils with a power she didn't even know she possessed anymore. He seemed surprised for a second. He had pale blue eyes, so pale they almost seemed to have a silvery sheen winding through the irises. They would have been beautiful had they belonged to almost anyone else.

She hadn't seen his eyes during the attack, he had been behind her the entire time, so facing him felt quite empowering. "How sweet," she said with a fake smile, "you feel safe with me?"

"Yea. I do."

The look in his eyes was sickeningly lusty, and she had a feeling that he wanted to capture her simply because she had been strong enough to get away. There was something in his look, a lack of humanity that seemed to define his face, like a solely self-serving creature instead of a real human being. She did jump when the door flung open and House entered and leaned against the wall.

He left the door open, mostly because he was convinced that she would have to come over and close it because she didn't like to have an open door. "Ouch," House said loudly as he looked at the wound, "were you trying to wait until your arm fell off before seeing a doctor?"

"I don't have insurance," Chapman sneered.

"Good thing you found a free clinic. It was also free several days ago."

"Look, she's taking care of me. So go away."

House turned to Cuddy and understood the look she gave him as clearly as if she had shouted the truth to him. It was the same look she gave right before she turned on their attackers. She knew who the patient was. "That looks like it could be necrotizing fasciitis," House commented, with dramatic concern, "we should call in Dr. Porter. She's an expert."

"What the fuck is fashitus?" the young man asked.

"Flesh eating bacteria."

"Dr. Porter?" Cuddy asked just as she remembered the detective's name. "You're right. We should call her in."

"Flesh eating bacteria?" Chapman asked as he began to panic.

"It's possible," she answered, enjoying his worry.

House started rambling on about the dangers of outdoor activities and other cases of necrotizing fasciitis that he'd heard about. Chapman looked like he was falling apart. Cuddy called a nurse and ordered antibiotics, realizing that he needed them anyway, and she was just trying to buy time and keep the young man there.

"For the safety of the other patients," Cuddy suddenly lied, realizing that she had a whole waiting room full of patients that needed to be moved out of harm's way before the police arrived, "we need to clear out the waiting room and move those people to a safe location until the whole area can be thoroughly cleaned. I don't want anyone else to catch this."

"The new strains spread fast," House continued the story, whispering to Cuddy like they were having a private medical consultation that Chapman was simply overhearing.

"Are you here alone?" she asked, "can we contact a family member or a friend?"

"My brother is here," Chapman answered.

"If he was with you, he'll have to be screened. Can you see if he's still in the waiting room?" she asked House, "and have them relocate the other patients until they can be examined."

"You want me to go?" House asked, searching her face.

"I'm fine," she answered with certainty. "I'd appreciate it if you could take care of that for me."

House nodded, moving as quickly as he could because leaving her in that room terrified him and he was going to do whatever he had to do so he could return right away.

Cuddy stood with the patient, walking to the open door to take the antibiotics from the nurse. She moved as slowly as she could, still trying to buy enough time for the police to arrive. It was obvious they would have to carefully consider how to approach the suspect without harming anyone else. She washed her hands, put on clean gloves and approached with everything she needed to start an IV. After she swabbed the area, he said, "You remember me. Don't you?"

She looked up at him with a blank, answerless face.

"I can tell. I could see it in your eyes when I came in here," he continued, as if they had been somehow star-crossed. "Tell me you know who I am."

"I know who you are," she answered hesitantly.

"I knew it. This is fate. I had this feeling about you. I could tell. You only fought me because your old man came home. I know women."

Cuddy swallowed as the extent of this man's insanity became clear to her. "Do you?"

"You liked me. There was a connection."

"I definitely have- - -very strong feelings about you," she answered through a stiff jaw.

She was holding her own, staying calm as she waited, until he reached out and touched her side. "I knew you wanted it," he suggested with oozing creepiness.

Her patience snapped as the controlled box she had forced herself into broke around her. She had tried so hard to contain her fear, to fight the things that were hurting her, and all of that resolve could only hold for so long.

"You want to know what I want?" she asked as she stepped back. Her voice escalated to a full yell, "I want you to vanish. I want to forget the way you felt, the way you smell, the way you sound. I want to destroy every single memory that I have of you." Cuddy's eyes were filled with rage, her face red, and she finally let out every bit of fury that she had and directed it right at the man she was angry with, "I hate you. I hate you more than your pathetic little mind can even comprehend."

It would have been so satisfying if her words would have impacted him at all, but his expression was one of complete indifference. He shrugged, "Well that wasn't very nice. And I was being so nice to you."

He snarled and reached out to grab her arm when he saw House standing against the wall. They had not heard him enter. In the doorway, there were several, very well armed and obviously well trained police officers. They ordered his hands in the air, and the officers were in the room so quickly that they had him disarmed and on the ground in a manner of seconds. "That wound on his arm is probably really painful," House mentioned while they cuffed him.

The officer who was restraining him pulled that arm back more roughly and responded, "I'll try to be extra careful."

As they led him away, Detective Porter said, "Ma'am, that was fantastic. You did a wonderful job diverting his attention so we could arrest his brother and get in here."

Cuddy nodded at the detective before a few officers came to interview the pair yet again. The interview took over an hour, it was the second time in recent weeks that she had to sit through such a session, reliving what had happened to her. Detective Porter made it clear that they would be called upon to testify if the case went to trial.

When they were finally finished with the interviews, she and House left the hospital together. There was a sense of victory between them that seemed to fall flat as they started to consider reality again.

House looked up at the cold winter sky and said, "We can home, no reason to avoid it anymore."

"I guess," she answered as they walked to the car.

When they got in and waited for the cold air blowing from the vents to warm, she said, "Would you mind spending one more night at the hotel? It's late, by the time we get our things packed- -"

"Sure."

When they returned to the hotel, they went through the heavily decorated lobby. There were trees, wreaths and lights for Christmas that neither House nor Cuddy seemed interested in.

Cuddy showered, and when she returned, House was sitting on the sofa in their hotel room. On the coffee table, there was a tiny, wiry Christmas tree that he had stolen from the hallway, covered with a full string of lights that he must of taken from somewhere else. The string of lights was much too big for the small artificial tree. "We're free," House commented, "as far as Christmas presents go, it seems like a pretty good one."

"This is my first official Christmas tree," she giggled sleepily, "don't tell Mom." The day had completely exhausted all of her reserves.

"That's what you get for consorting with a goy."

"Some couples of different cultures or religious backgrounds celebrate both traditions. I figured we'd be the type of couple who didn't bother celebrating either."

She waited for his response, her eyes hopeful, curious and affectionate as she waited to hear his answer to the informal suggestion that they were a couple.

When he finally spoke, he put his arm across the back of the sofa and pointed to a spot for her. "I'm in a celebrating mood this year. We can decide how to handle next year when the time comes."

Taking the spot next to him, she said, "It's so weird, but I still don't feel free. I still feel like I need to check the door. I still feel like they're out there."

"I know."

She reached up, brushing her thumb against his lips, "I still feel the same about this. About us."

"Me too," he answered like it was no big deal. "Besides, I'm showing you all about the joy of Christmas. I decorated for you. You owe me. The last day of Hanukkah is in a few days, and you can teach me your traditions and shower me with tons of Hanukkah sex."

"I'm completely certain that pre-marital sex with a gentile is not a Hanukkah tradition."

"Well, when traditions suck, and that one clearly does, it's time to make new traditions. We superheroed that shit tonight yet again. We made the world a little safer, but there aren't any ticker tape parades for us down the center of town. As our award, we should be allowed to shake up tradition."

She fell asleep against his chest on the sofa. He leaned his head back so he could sleep as well, but still found the images that had plagued him for weeks continued to play in his mind. Like Cuddy, he still didn't really feel free. After swallowing another Vicodin, he tightened his arm around her and wondered when his mind would no longer return to those thoughts. He had always felt certain that the capture of the perpetrators would end the anxiety they both felt. If their attackers were finally caught and that didn't solve the problem, he wasn't sure what they'd have to do to finally move beyond the trauma.

Still, in spite of all that had happened, holding Cuddy as she slept while he stared at his pathetic little tree was definitely one of the best Christmas Eves he could remember.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: Going home to see family. There won't be an update for a few days.**

* * *

After the arrest of their attackers, House and Cuddy's situations didn't seem to improve. It almost seemed worse after they no longer had something to focus their energy on. In some way, they had been spending their time clinging to each other and trying to ensure their survival. When that fear and tension was gone, they were left with anger, and only each other to focus it on. To make matters worse, just as Cuddy was really embracing the thought of them in a relationship, House questioned if she was better off without him.

They spent Christmas night alone after deciding that they needed their own space, and the situation only deteriorated from there. The morning of the last day of Hanukkah, House found Cuddy in her office. He asked why she didn't respond to the numerous messages left by her mother to join her family, and Cuddy asked why he cared. Everything that had been so carefully built on their mutual dependence exploded when he offered his response. In moments, they were reopening old wounds that had been there for years while they lashed out all of their anger. Cuddy went to her door and was preparing to force him from her office when she asked, "Why can't you admit that you care about me?"

He stood before she could kick him out, and, leaning on his cane so his face was near hers, he whispered, "I'd hate to lie to you," and walked out.

They both sat alone in their own homes, places of former sanctuary that felt more like cages. Neither wanted to admit the sorrow that remained at the loss of the other.

After nearly two weeks, neither was willing to extend an olive branch. The January nights were long and cold. Cuddy had been making steady improvements with the help of her therapist in combating her PTSD, but she felt increasingly depressed and was working nearly eighteen hours a day. House had become utterly despondent and seemed to be hiding behind cases and chemicals. Wilson and Cameron had both attempted, fruitlessly, to intercede.

Cuddy was working late one night, and, deciding that it wasn't worth going home, she chose to shower at the hospital. She found an empty patient room so she could have some privacy since the locker room was still too open for her comfort. She stepped into the elevator, her hair still damp, when she heard the voice she'd rarely heard in recent days, "I thought you were cured and you didn't have to avoid going home anymore."

Blinking slowly, she turned toward the control panel to the spot where House had been leaning against the wall. "We can just go right on pretending that we don't see each other," she answered as she faced the doors and avoided looking at him.

"I may not be cured, but I can go home."

"Good for you."

"Want to come?" he asked, with gruff sorrow.

Her face softened as she finally looked directly at him, "Why?"

"You look tired."

"You don't care if I'm tired. So why bother inviting?"

"I haven't had my knob polished in a few weeks, so I figured if you were bored—"

She huffed angrily but she looked like she'd been stabbed. Cuddy folded her arms across her chest and scowled as she tried to leave the elevator, "Find a new polisher. I'm sure you've already bought one."

When she thought she'd found her escape, he yanked her back into the elevator and hit the button for the highest floor.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she yelled before she shoved him away. "Don't touch me. Don't you ever fucking touch me."

His back hit the elevator wall from the force she used to shove him and he shook his head. It looked as if something horrible was on the tip of his tongue and then he said, clearly, "Come on, Cuddy. Don't leave."

"It's too late. Whatever there was between us is gone. I needed you, I admitted my feelings for you, and you couldn't even admit that I mattered. You couldn't admit that you cared."

The door dinged as they reached the top floor, and he quickly pressed the button for a lower floor, and hit the emergency stop.

"How long are you going to keep me in here?" she spat.

"As long as it takes."

"For what? You want me to tell you how I feel so you can tell me you don't care? I'm not falling for it again. I've tried to talk to you, and I get back these cryptic little responses because you can't just admit that you have feelings for me like an adult. I know how you feel, I can see it in your eyes. The thought of something happening to me, the realization of what could have happened, it killed part of you. It is still killing you. But you can't even act like you don't hate me."

"If you already know, then why do I have to say anything?"

"Because you don't just avoid saying it. You have to lash out and try to hurt me. You try to prove that you don't care."

"You were the one who just pushed me."

"You pulled me in here. You tried to provoke me and it worked. You need help."

"I don't need help."

"You think you're fine?"

"I don't need help- - I need you."

She was stunned initially as she stared into the eyes that matched the words and she shook her head, "It's not enough. I don't want to be needed when you're looking for a – knob polisher. I counted on you. I put my trust in you. And then you disappeared."

"You said you needed me and then you didn't."

"You can be so fucking cold."

"Me?" he yelled.

"You made me feel something for you," she argued as her finger poked his chest. "You were there. And right when I was ready to take the leap, it was all over. You came back just as unfeeling as I worried you'd be. You need help."

"If you thought I needed help, why did you disappear? If you care so much, how could you leave when I needed you the most?"

"I was in love with you," she answered with nothing short of pure rage. "Fuck you for making me love you. Fuck you for making me trust you. And you cut into me just like everyone else and took the pieces you wanted before you walked away without a care in the world."

She was shaking her head, her body quivering with anger before he grabbed her face and dove in for a kiss. His tongue was immediately moving into her mouth but she put her hands on his chest and pushed him back again, "No, House."

His arms were still around her, her body was still against his, so her rejection was equivocal.

He admitted, almost in spite of himself, "I still love you. Is that what it takes? You need me to say it?"

"That isn't enough anymore. It would have been. I'm still not over what happened to me- -what happened to **us**. But you can't even admit that it bothers you anymore. You took huge steps backwards while you were running away from me."

"It bothers me."

"I can barely keep myself together. I can't keep us both together if you won't even try," she said as he kissed her forehead. She looked into his eyes and stated, "You need help."

"I know." He kissed her lips, softly.

"Knowing is not enough."

"True," he answered while he tried to kiss her again.

This time, she parted her lips, inviting him into her mouth for a few spine-tingling seconds before she backed away. "You love me?" she asked, suddenly accepting the words he'd said earlier.

"I thought it was obvious?"

"That's not an answer."

"I do. And you know it," he said, taking a chance and unbuttoning her shirt.

"I need **you** to know it, too. I need you to be able to accept it, because if you can't, what's the point?"

His hands slid around her waist under her shirt while he asked, tentatively, "But you don't feel the same anymore?"

"Of course I do," she said tersely while she reached for his belt and tugged the end through the buckle. "You better not be lying to me."

"I'm not," he sighed as he felt her reach into his boxers and wrap her fingers around his dick. His head slapped back against the wall.

"I need you to try."

He suddenly lifted his head and held her hand still, trying to prove that his declaration was not sexually motivated. "And I need you."

She nodded subtly, her answer sufficient enough to meet his demand. He moved her hand again, encouraging her to stroke him. He opened her pants, pulling her to him as he fumbled his way into her underwear. Turning them around, he moved her to the corner of the elevator. He pushed his jeans and boxers down after he yanked her silkier pants from her legs, pinning her between the walls and his body.

She braced her hands on the bars of the elevator and lifted her body while she wound her legs around his torso. Everything had turned so quickly, he seemed almost confused while he tried to figure out what to do next. His fingers reached for her slit, but she tightened her legs to pull him to her. She pushed her pelvis toward him, communicating her desires through body language.

He shoved into her, feeling the tight convulsions of her body reacting to his sudden intrusion, but she gasped out her pleasure. "You feel so good," they said almost in unison, reveling in the satisfaction.

Almost immediately their hips were in motion, finding their rhythm too easily. The pace was instantly fast, gravity rubbing them together in ways that made them nearly cum from the moment they'd started. She moaned as he impaled her body repeatedly, twisting his hips against her each time he moved into her. They were trading occasional sloppy kisses, tugging at remaining clothes, going at each other with ferocity.

There was nothing delicate between them as gasps, grunts and moans filled the tiny space in the elevator. He growled as he started to peak so quickly, adding an extra rock in his hips to push against her clit and gritting his teeth to try to hold off for as long as he could. She screamed. It was a loud, beautiful, uncontrolled scream of release that extended beyond the realm of the sexual. His orgasm cut through his fogged mind like a knife as the crisp sensations brought him into the world as much as it transported him away from it.

He was leaning against her, his hands braced next to hers on the rails, his weight heavy against her body. He was sated and stunned but more acutely aware than he had been in days. He was surprised that he'd even been capable of sex, given the amount of Vicodin he was on and the fact that he hadn't even been able to jerk off for days.

Moving inside her a few more times while he still could, he watched the tension in her face dissolve as the aftershocks of her orgasm zipped through her body. She sighed, a bit of worry coming back into her voice, "We shouldn't have done that here."

"No one is in this wing at this time of night," he answered, moving his hand to her breast. Some hopeful part of him wondered if he could convince his body, and her, to go for another round.

She pulled away, sliding down and lowering her feet to the ground. There was little space because he was still leaning into the corner. Putting her hands on his chest, she lifted his upper body, asking, "Are you OK?"

"Come home with me."

"Right now?"

"All of the time."

"My appointment is tomorrow. Come along."

"To your shrink?" he groaned.

"Yes. This is my appointment, it's not focused on you. You can see what it's like. But she asked a few times if I wanted you there since we went through everything together. She thought it might help me. Maybe she can recommend someone for you?"

"Maybe."

"You said you'd try. All that I'm asking is that you come along."

He nodded, his head still leaning against the wall.

"We need to figure out how to fight-"

"I think we're fine in that department."

"How to fight without everything falling to pieces. We convinced each other that we could be trusted, leaned on- -and then we left each other."

"Hey," he answered, suddenly becoming argumentative, "I wasn't the only one who-"

"Did I say you?" she interrupted, verbally pushing back. "I said we. I didn't handle it well either. But what's the point in convincing each other that we can be trusted if things like that are going to happen again."

His head bobbed while she moved out from under his arm to get dressed, and he unhappily fixed his clothes and leaned back against the wall, looking at the spot where his cane waited on the floor. She handed it to him and reached out to release the emergency stop, pausing for a moment. "I'm not going to force you to get help. You need to do it willingly. It's your choice. We both have to do what's best for us."

The truth hung loudly in his head, he knew that if he continued on his current path, she wouldn't be able to be in a relationship with him. She was trying not to say it, but he couldn't really blame her. He was no good to either of them like that just as much as Cuddy could no longer spend nights staring at doors she ritualistically locked.

"This isn't a threat," she offered, "it's just-"

"I get it," he interrupted, acquiescently. "I'll go with you."

She hit the release and whispered, "You don't look good."

"You do."

"I mean you look sick."

"Yea."

"You can't take this much Vicodin."

"I'm not quitting," he stated, firmly, glancing over at her with an adamant expression.

"I'm not asking you to. But the amount you're taking right now has nothing to do with your leg."

Before he could argue, he found himself silently agreeing.

"Things got a little side tracked," she added, "but we can do this. We agreed that we could do this together. We still can."

After the elevator opened, she walked into the lobby and turned to see if he was following. "You coming home with me?" he asked again.

"Yes."

"OK."

He finally began to follow her to the garage and she pulled his keys from his hand. "I'm driving though. You're in no condition."

They went to his apartment. He watched with interest when she walked in to see what sort of progress she'd made. She still locked the door, but only once, inspecting it visually for several seconds before she entered. She walked through the whole place in a very precise fashion, checking each window to be sure that it was locked, and quickly inspecting closets and the bedroom and bathroom for intruders. Her assessment was methodic and comprehensive, but when she was done, she seemed at ease. It was as if she allowed her body and mind to thoroughly ensure her safety without trying to hide what she was doing, but when she was done, her mind allowed her to feel safe in return. She had definitely made progress.

Her hands were on her hips, a bit defensively for a moment when he said, "Does it help?"

When she realized he wasn't asking in an accusatory tone, she answered, "Yea."

"Maybe I'll sleep better with the world's tiniest body guard next to me."

She approached, grabbing his hand to lead him to the bedroom, "Maybe you will."

When she came to bed, he was already there, looking sleepless and worn. She got under the sheets, pushing her body back to his. His fingers moved under the shirt she was wearing almost immediately, his rough touch feeling familiar and reassuring. She wasn't at all unhappy at the thought that he would initiate sex again. But almost as quickly as he found his way to her breast, his breath grew steady and deep and he stopped moving.

She looked over her shoulder, certain that there was no way the man could be asleep, but he was. For a moment, she convinced herself that she would never fall asleep there. After all, for as much time as they spent in a shared bed, it was normally at a hotel, so this place was far too unfamiliar. She hadn't even finished the internal argument about why she would never fall asleep when she drifted into unconsciousness.

In the morning when they woke, she saw him take one Vicodin, and even noticed that he glanced at his watch to note the time. Expecting him to argue about going to the appointment, she was already prepared for the possibility, but he showed up at her office at the proper time and went to the appointment.

Since Cuddy's anxiety was less pronounced, she now went to appointments at the therapist's regular office. House said very little as they waited in the waiting room, but when he almost reached the four-hour window since the last dose, he threw another pill into his mouth. He seemed desperate for it, but she could see the effort he was making. It was possible that he was taking them secretly, but since she hadn't made any specific demands, and he made no point to show her what he was doing, she had the distinct impression that he was limiting his dosages for his own reasons.

When they walked into the comfortable office that seemed more like a living room than what he had expected, the therapist greeted Cuddy and turned to House, "Dr. Rebecca Fisher. And you are?"

"House."

"House?"

"Greg House. I'm- -" he seemed to be ill-prepared to consider anything of roles, but answered after a time, "I'm her boyfriend. And I work for her."

"Nice to meet you," Fisher answered. "You were there the night of the attack."

"Yea."

"Coping with traumatic events like this can be a very difficult and complicated process. It's good to see you have each other's support."

He wrinkled his eyebrows and tightened his jaw as he considered the statement she had made almost as if it was a very weighty question. Looking at Fisher, the thought-filled expression left his face and he answered, resolutely, "We do."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: I'm back. I hope some of you are still interested in reading after the delay in chapters.**

* * *

House told Cuddy he had to go help his mother take care of his father's estate. He could see the determination in her eyes when he told her he'd be gone a little over a week. He mentioned that she could stay with Wilson, but she felt ready to be on her own. She had been alone over those weeks when they'd fought. Her first instinct was to wonder if he was setting this up to prove to her that she was doing well. She was doing well, given everything that had happened, but that was not the reason why he told her he was leaving.

House had found his own therapist, Dr. Donald Parkin, shortly after the joint session with Cuddy's. The problem was that House knew she was getting better while he was getting worse. His Vicodin habit was out of control. He could see it, the thinking part of his brain could acknowledge it even as other parts of his brain tried to deny it. And he still felt like he had to look out for her. She was still looking out for him, whether she wanted to admit it or not. They couldn't seem to break the bond that they'd forged, but neither of them really wanted to either.

He had a suspicion that if he couldn't get his habit under control, things between them were going to crumble. After several attempts to cut back, he always found his use escalating again. His insomnia was almost crippling, and he found he couldn't concentrate on cases long enough to even hypothesize. He felt like everything was spinning out of control. The thing he hated to admit was that therapy really was helping, but it wasn't helping enough.

His mind was playing tricks on him, cruel tricks with visions of her beaten or decomposing body, and even nightmares of their attackers repeatedly causing her harm. The lines between reality and illusion were thinning. When House finally grew frustrated enough to ditch counseling, the therapist asked him to try one more thing before giving up.

Cuddy kissed him goodbye when she left his apartment the morning that she thought he was leaving to join his mother, and paused momentarily, noticing that he seemed to be getting sick. He told her he had to go anyway.

As soon as she was gone, House gathered his keys and moved his car to an alley nearby. By the time he got back to his apartment, he was drenched in sweat. He only had a few days to get as much of the detoxing process finished as possible.

He had stopped taking Vicodin the day before, trying to time the arrival of the first symptoms of detox so they would show after Cuddy's departure. They started too soon, but he was content with allowing her to believe that he was sick. They had agreed to speak daily, so at least she would be expecting him to sound terrible.

The worst part of detox wasn't the sweats or the intense muscle aches or the way that his eyes kept tearing. It was the panic, the sheer sense of apprehension that filled him. The pervasive and anxiety-filled realization that he would no longer have Vicodin filled his thoughts. But if he kept the Vicodin, he wasn't sure what else he'd lose. His sanity definitely seemed at stake. Everything seemed so final.

Still he waited while his body acted without his consent, the tears that flowed from his eyes had nothing to do with pain or sadness, he told himself repeatedly. He caught his reflection and hated it, he looked weak and pathetic. He loved Vicodin, in a way, it had helped him through many painful days and nights, but he hated what happened to his body without it.

Cuddy's call each night before bed was the highlight and the torment of each day. Hearing her voice was undeniably reassuring, the sound of something clear and harmonic that would separate the harsh atonal clatter that surrounded him for the rest of the day. At the same time, he missed her. He would lie to her, without any attempts at the truth. He hurt too much to try to tell her half-truths that were somehow justifiable. She worried, he could hear it. She knew something was wrong. He would tell her that he was sick and he was ready for this fucking trip to be over, but he could hear the concern in her voice anyway.

It wasn't long before the tearing, sweats and muscle contractions were accompanied by unparalleled nausea. He was still throwing up long after everything that had been in his stomach was gone. Days began to blend. He told Cuddy his mother needed him for another week. She didn't complain, in fact, she did all of the paperwork for him so he could miss work.

He was awaiting her call one night when he heard something in the front of his apartment. He was sitting in his tub, exhausted and trying to rest when he heard her. "Oh my God," she yelled, obviously panicking from the wrecked state of the apartment.

She called his name as she tore back through the apartment until she came into the bathroom. "What happened to you?" she asked as she drew closer. "What did they do?"

"Eleven days," he answered, his eyes heavy.

"Eleven days of what?"

"Clean. I have eleven days."

"Who else knows you're here?" she asked, hoping that he had been smart enough to at least tell Wilson what he was doing.

"No one. Why are you here?"

"The shoes I wanted for work tomorrow- -they're here," she said as she stood up. "You lied to me."

"Yes."

"I could have helped you."

"I know. I just didn't-," House's voice trailed off as he looked up toward the ceiling and closed his eyes.

"You don't want me here?"

"It's fine now, you can stay. The worst is over with."

"Dr. Parkin approved this do-it-yourself detox?"

"I told him I was entering a program. I didn't mention the do-it-yourself part."

She knelt next to his tub, "Are you alright?"

He nodded once. "I'm fine. Doing better now."

Her fingers delicately rubbed the arm that hung out of the tub. Her touch felt nice, reassuring, soothing, and at the same time, it was almost too much for his hypersensitive skin. He dozed in the tub without realizing that he was going to sleep. When he woke, she was cleaning up. He stumbled to bed, still half damp, a towel flung in front of him that ended up trapped between his wet body and his sheets. Calling into the air, he yelled, "Relax. I don't need you to clean up after me."

When he woke, she was in a chair in his bedroom. He wondered why she wasn't lying in bed, but he realized that he was taking up most of the room. Also the sheets were wet all around him. She came home with an IV banana bag because he was so dehydrated, and he decided not to ask if the supplies came from the hospital. She was remarkably quiet over the next few days, stopping in after work with few questions. She was helpful, kind and patient, but her presence seemed more one of medical necessity than anything else.

One morning as she was working, she found him standing outside of her office door. He opened it, stepped inside and announced, "I'm back."

He was still recovering, and, although they had seen each other every day since she found him, it was the most time they spent together without having sex since they started their relationship. Cuddy hadn't said much about the whole thing, but he suspected that she was trying to give him time to heal.

The first night he went back to his therapist after detoxing, he rode to Cuddy's as soon as he left. He messaged beforehand so he wouldn't scare her when he showed up at her place. She seemed happy that he was there, but was oddly quiet while she heated up some food from her refrigerator.

When she put the plate in front of him, he asked, belligerently, "Are you going to yell at me yet, or am I still too sick to nag?"

"What?"

"You're pissed. You're really pissed. You're keeping about three feet of space between us all of the time, you haven't touched me since you got back and you won't just scream at me about whatever's pissing you off."

"You wanted me to have sex with you when you were still vomiting?"

"I haven't vomited for days."

"You were still miserable. You certainly didn't act like you were interested in me either."

"So I should have chased you around?"

"I gave you space. Nagging someone who is that sick for sex seemed really selfish. I was there for you. I was just trying to **be** there—at least when you let me."

The room fell silent when he seemed taken aback. "So this isn't about me being too sickly to yell at. You're pissed that I didn't ask your permission first?"

"No," she countered, right in his face, "that isn't it. I didn't want you to ask for permission, but you could have told me. I was worried about you. The whole time you were gone I was worried about you traveling when you were that ill, and you were in your own apartment. You didn't even think to tell me. You wouldn't even let me help you."

"I started therapy because of you. I'm clean. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

She sighed, her anger waning, "Of course it does. I would have helped you, stood by you."

"I didn't want you to try to convince me to go to some rehab. I didn't want some kid working there to tell me what I could and could not have, or lock me in some room while I detoxed. I had to be able to do this on my terms."

"I'm not just some kid working in a rehab, House. You could have told me, and then asked me to stay away."

"I'm sure you would have taken that well."

"Why? Why didn't you tell me? Even if you didn't want me with you, you didn't have to lie."

"I didn't want to fuck this up," he said, punctuating each word. "I didn't want to say something that I couldn't take back because I was in pain. I did that to keep you. You're completely missing the point. I haven't taken an opiate in nineteen days. Do you have any idea how fucking hard that was?"

Reaching out, her hand settled on his chest, "I would have done almost anything to help you with that. Don't you know that?"

"Of course I know it. It wasn't worth the risk."

He wrapped his arm around her, kissing her forehead before his hand found the side of her face. His thumb brushed over her lips, his eyes filled with sincerity and worry. Stomping out his concern, her lips puckered subtly as she kissed his thumb while it moved against her.

"I can't believe you did it. It's—amazing. How do you feel?" she asked.

"Starting to feel not dead."

"Your leg? Does it hurt?"

"Yea, it does. But it always does, even with the Vicodin."

"Do you need a support group or- -something?"

"I'm still going to Parkin. He wants me to go to his group thing. I haven't decided."

"Looks like you handled the first step just fine."

"After you fought everything—" he started, on the verge of a compliment. It sat there, unsaid, but she knew. He admired her. She was sure he was going to let his words fade. He couldn't fully express how he felt, sobriety didn't change that, but he looked at his thumb on her lips and added, "You survived—after everything."

Her lips moved in the hopes that words would come naturally, but she, too, wasn't sure how to articulate her feelings at that moment.

He added, softly, "I want to be- -," and then, lost there, he kissed her.

The softness, the delicate press of lips, lasted a few seconds before she deepened the kiss. He actually felt the pleasure course through him in a way that he hadn't felt since before his infarction, all emanating from the spot of the touch. He slid his tongue into her mouth, feeling her move in time with him, both in cooperation and opposition. The kiss, like their relationship, was passionate, rough, sometimes making the moments of coordination so much more sensual as a result to the moments of antagonism.

His heart thumped with a charged irregularity for a few beats and he separated from her, looking into her eyes while he took a second to read his body. Breath moved his entire chest as he tried to decipher the feeling until he decided he didn't really care what the feeling was, but he wanted more of it.

Cuddy stood before him, her own heart beating rapidly, her own senses heightened by his gesture and the few, although meaningful, words that he'd spoken. So much had transpired, and even though he'd kept her away during his detox, it wasn't for the purpose of keeping her away permanently.

The pause screeched to a halt when their mouths met again, and he lifted her against him. His hands cradled her ass and he kept her feet off the ground. He felt so much more powerful against her. His cock almost immediately became rigid between them, his response time so much faster than it had been a few weeks earlier. The pressure of her body against him through their clothes was enough to make him groan and push his hips against her.

While she was being held by him, she dropped her bathrobe onto the floor and yanked her delicate top off. He took unsteady steps back against the wall. Once he was braced against it, she slid down his body, dropping onto her knees as she popped open his jeans. She ran her palm along the length of cock, pressing it back against his abdomen. He was fully hard even though they'd barely gotten started.

She perched her body on the edge of a nearby chair because it was easier to reach him, and in those seconds, his mind was already reeling. He felt his whole pelvis tighten, the weight of desire flooding his sex with powerful longing. When under the influence of constant opiates, his desire felt like a loud and persistent knock on the door, but without opiates, it felt like a battering ram crashing through.

She pushed his shirt up along his stomach, her hand pressing against his flat abdomen while she slowly slid her lips up the thick vein along the underside of his erection. Moving along his length a few times, she could hear the stilted, open-mouthed pants that she was already causing, hearing an occasional pleasured grunt from the center of his chest. She wrapped her warm, inviting mouth over the tip of his cock and he felt like he was approaching the finest place he'd ever been. Sliding her lips down over his length, she wrapped one hand around the part of his dick that she couldn't take in her mouth, her other hand cupping his balls, and she started to work his body.

It felt good, better than his first blow job, and he had thought that was a really memorable moment. He felt his body tighten quickly, assuring himself that there was no way he could reach orgasm that fast. She moaned against him, the vibrations at the back of her throat coursing through his tip and traveling the whole way through his body at light speed. By the time he realized that he was on the verge of cumming, it was too late. Pleasure erupted like an explosion of light and electricity, surging every bit of energy, arousal and passion in his body into one central location before releasing it.

He was partially bent at the shoulders as he approached, but when he came, his shoulders and head smacked back against the wall. His hand went to the back of her head, trying not to pull her too close but wanting to touch the source of such incredible pleasure. He came in loud, primal groans, his whole body filled with tension, and then she took him all in her mouth again and he was alerted to the fact that it was too much. He pulled his cock, still mostly hard, from her mouth and slid down the wall until he was on the floor like a windup toy that needed rewound.

Uncertain if he should feel awed by her skills or embarrassed that he finished so quickly, he looked for her reaction. She had an expression of satisfaction and asked, "Did that feel good?"

He nodded quickly before he mumbled, "I should have- -you know."

"Should have what?' she asked as she leaned on the wall next to him.

"Warned you or- -something."

She couldn't help but smile at how off center he seemed, it was sort of endearing. "I like throwing you off your game. Feels good to make you lose control."

"I didn't want to hurt you," he admitted suddenly, and she knew he was returning to the subject of his secret detox.

"I can handle you. I'm not weak either. I wish you'd learn that."

She stood unexpectedly, and lowered her hand to help him up. Looking up at her, there was a glint of mischief hit his eye. She was shirtless, her ivory body in front of him with the most perfect proportions. She still had on the silky shorts that she slept in, but her upper body was completely bare. He looked up at the way her breasts stood proudly from her body, her nipples pert from the sex or perhaps from the chill in the room. "You coming?" she asked. Adding confidently, "Or do you need a minute?"

The tips of his fingers traced up her legs, she could even feel the bit of nail that hung past the pads of his fingers. He pulled the shorts and panties down together, removing them as if they were fragile. He leaned back against the wall, lifting her one leg over his extended legs so she was standing in front of him. Reaching for her ass, he pulled her body toward him while she stood, straddling him.

His hands surrounded her hips and tilted her pelvis. Without hesitation, his tongue slid from the top of her slit down, tickling against her clit. Allowing her to open her legs more fully and further bare her body to him, he dove lower along her sex, reaching almost to her dripping opening before coming back to her clit, moving against it and rolling it in the plentiful moisture that coated her.

She was moaning subtly, with little gasps and sighs that confirmed that she liked what he was doing. Backing away, he brought his fingers to her sex, spreading her lips so he could see her exposed before him. Her clit was dark pink, jutting forward and pleading for attention. Moving closer, he pulled the tiny bit of flesh and nerves into his mouth, wrapping his lips around it and sucking while the tip of his tongue met the end of her nub to heighten the sensation.

When he sucked her into his mouth, she moaned out loudly, her one hand bracing against the wall. His one hand moved to her ass again, pulling her against him in rhythmic pulses forward like he was fucking her with his mouth.

"Go inside," she gasped as she got closer, but he shook his head.

She lifted one of her feet up to his shoulder, making her body even more accessible, trying to encourage him to put something into her waiting core, but he flicked his tongue more rapidly against her while his lips continued to pull at her clit. She was going after her orgasm, her foot still on his shoulder while rocked her pelvis against his face. She screamed, "God, House, don't stop," repeatedly as she came, still leaning against the wall to keep her balance.

After she came, she started sliding down his body, like she, too, needed rewound. Her one leg stayed hooked over his shoulder until he moved it to the side. When she was near enough, he pinched her lower lip between his, poking his tongue through the opening in her lips. "Let me lick you again," he demanded, his tone forceful, "I'm not done."

She looked between their bodies, feeling his dick sliding between her soaked folds, and she could see his erection jutting up between them. He was shifting just a little because he had to. "You're hard already?" she asked.

He kissed her once, "You tasted good," he kissed her again. "You felt good." Kissing her much more deeply, he added, "I don't ever want to stop."

She sighed into his mouth, lifting her body and grasping his dick before she lined them up. As soon as he felt the warmth of her body beckoning him, he pushed upward, thrusting without hesitation into her. She was so tight, her body twitching repeatedly against him as her muscles relaxed enough to let him move. She cried out, aroused, stimulated and lost in this sex. She started moving quickly on his lap, sliding her pussy up and down his rigid shaft. "Slow down for me," he tried to order, but he sounded more pleading.

Bracing her forearms on his shoulders, she slowed, lifting her body away until he was barely inside of her before she'd smoothly slink back down.

"Good," he sighed as his hands moved up her back and pushed her bare breasts against his chest.

"That's better?"

"It's perfect."

His eyes were boring into hers when she opened them and he watched the ecstasy on her face when his thumb pressed against her clit. Her hips sped up of their own will and she offered the quickest look of apology before she surrendered to her body and started riding him like her life depended on it. She was so primal and sexual, allowing her body to seek what it wanted and it turned him on beyond belief. He could feel the ridges inside her begin to quiver and tighten as her nails dug into his shoulders.

He started pounding into her from below, lifting with all of the power of his body, thrusting with all of his passion until she yelled out. He growled her name while he kept fucking her, listening to her stuttered moans that were separated each time he plunged into her body and hit the end of her. He came in a burst of hot euphoria that erupted just as the need to cum reached near-pain, feeling her liquid heat still sliding along his dick until she settled in his lap, keeping him still in the comfortable recesses of her body.

If he could have gotten hard again, he would have gladly fucked her until she made him stop. He wanted to roll her under him and slowly screw her into a frenzy. She seemed to sense his unspoken wish, and she said, "I'll still be here later."

* * *

They woke a few hours after, curled together in her bed. "There's something I should tell you," she informed him. "I didn't have the chance to earlier."

"What?" he asked, hints of uncertainty showing through.

"They set a date for trial. We're both being called as witnesses."

His arm tightened around her, "You alright with that?"

"I want to finish that. Finish them. I want them locked up, and I'll do whatever I can to make sure that happens."

He looked up at the ceiling, steeling himself for whatever was coming as the trial approached.

She sat up, folding her legs under her and facing him after she switched on the lamp. "I'm going to want you there with me," she stated plainly.

"I'll be there."

"I need you to be able to lean on me, too. I think you need Parkin, but—I want you to be able to count on me."

"I do. I needed to get a little better. I did that."

"We're a team. We're all-in. Right?"

The way she asked the question spoke more to its sincerity than her words.

"I needed to get a little better," he said again. "I did that. I am all-in. You don't even have to question it."

"So am I."

She lay back down, looping a leg and an arm over him. She asked, hesitantly, "Would it be condescending if I told you I was so impressed by what you did? I'm proud of you."

"Horribly condescending," he said sarcastically with a subtle smirk. "How could you even think of saying that?"

"It must have been terrible."

"It wasn't fun. It's done." After a second he held her to his chest so she couldn't look up at him and said, "It was good that you showed up. Things are- - -things are not as bad with you around. Even the shitty things."

She could feel the tension through his skin. And God how she basked in that moment. The admission for him was so broad it seemed to hurt. She wanted to handle it perfectly because she didn't want him to feel rejected and, at the same time, she didn't want her reaction to make him feel too exposed. She tightened her arm and whispered, "It's better with you, too."

Rolling onto his side he said, sincerely and boldly, "There is actually no one I'd rather be annoyed by."

"The feeling's mutual," she replied, moving closer and feeling him at half-mast already. "Seriously? I like your post-opioid friskiness."

"Drugs are bad. This public service announcement is brought to you by my penis."

She chuckled, "You—you are a sick, sick man."

"I am," he nodded, his hands covering the small of her back, "I'm in need of the expertise of a smokin' endocrinologist. Know one?"


End file.
